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Section  j.hj/F2c 
No „.. 


THE  CHRIST  OF 

OUR  POETS 

II.  WALTER  FEATHEBSTUN,  D.D. 

m 

"What  think  ye  of  Christ?"— J^svs 

Nashville,  Tenn.;  Dallas,  Tex. 

Publishing  House  M.  E.  Church,  South 

Barbkb  &  Smith,  Agents 

1901 


Copyrighted,  1901 
By 

H.  Waltek  Featherstun 


To  My  Friend  and  Brother 
REV.  H.  M.  Du  EOSE,  D.D. 
Whose  Suggestion  Gave  Birth 
to  My  Purpose  to  Write 
These  Studies 


CONTENTS 

'  J'AGE 

The  Christ  of  Browning 7 

The  Message  of  "  In  Memokiam  " 19 

The  Optimism  of  "Locksley  Hall"....  31 

The  Rege?>ieration  of  En-iiiN ^  i 

Tennyson's  " Holy  Gkaii." ^9 

Lov/eee's  "Sir  Launfal" 59 

^Irs.  Browning's  Gospel  of  Reform  ...  65 
"The   jMeuchant    of    Venice"    Trans- 
figured    75 

The  Gospel  in  "  Lalla  Rookh  " 85 

IMoore's  vSong  of  Sin 93 

Moore's  Lyrics  of  Faith -  . . . .  101 

Whittier's  Creed 113 

The  Religion  of  Longfellow 1 25 

Holland's  "Bitter-Sweet" 135 

'•The  Marrle  Prophecy  " K15 

Epics  of  Jesus 153 

Co)  ■ 


THE  CHRIST  OF 
BROWNING 


"  God  so  lotad  the  world,  that  he 

gate  his  only  begotten   Son,  that 

whosoever  believeth  in  him  should 

not  perish,  but  have  everlasting  life  " 

—John  Hi.  i6 


By  "The  Christ  of  Browning"  let  us  not  un- 
derstand merely  the  poet's  conception  of  the  per- 
son and  mission  of  the  Christ,  hut  his  notion  of 
Christ's  teachings  as  well;  indeed,  of  that  whole 
grand  system  of  which  Christ  is  the  center,  as 
the  hub  is  of  the  w^lieel.  In  a  very  essential  sense 
Christ  and  Christianity  are  one. 

A  living  writer^  has  recently  said: 

If  Tennyson  reflected  the  scientific  nineteenth  cen- 
tury's doubt,  and  triumph  in  struggling  out  of  it, 
Browning  reflected  the  theological  nineteenth  cen- 
tury's faith,  and  as  an  exuberance  of  spiritual  life.  He 
incorporated  into  his  metaphysical  genius  the  psychol- 
ogy underlying  the  great  literature  of  the  Bible,  and 
the  newly  forming  literature  of  the  Wesleyan  move- 
ment. 

This  is  not  saying  too  much ;  and  yet  there  is 
apparent  throughout  his  works  no  effort  to  make 
public  the  sacred  secrets  of  his  spiritual  life ;  but 
on  the  other  hand,  like  tlie  Christ,  he  would  say  to 
Lis  children,  creatures  of  his  brain,  "See  thou  tell 
no  man."  But  spirituality,  like  "a  city  that  is  set. 
en  a  hill,  cannot  be  hid" ;  its  very  existence  is 
self-assertive;   it   is   light   made   to   lighten   the 

'  Rev.  D.  S.  Hearon,  D.D. 

9 


The  Christ  of  Our  Poets 

world,  and  when  it  fails  to  enlighten  it  ceases  to 
exist.  Perhaps  Dr.  Hearon  only  told  the  truth 
when  he  wrote: 

The  uplift  of  religious- consciousness  as  reflected  in 
English  literature  registers  its  highest  reach  in  Rob- 
ert Browning.  His  poetry  reflects  a  higher,  complet- 
er spirituality  than  is  found  elsewhere  in  our  litera^ 
ture. 

Browning's  conception  of  God  is  that  which 
he  could  have  gotten  only  through  the  Christ. 
He  thought  of  God  as  a  Father;  his  gospel  was, 
"God  so  loved  the  world."  ?Iis  Festus  in  "Par- 
acelsus" says: 

God!     Thou  art  love!     I  build  my  faith  on  that. 

This  was  Browning's  very  soul.     In  "Evelyn 

Hope"  he  sings : 

God  above 
Is  great  to  grant,  as  mighty  to  make. 

In  "Saul,"  one  of  his  masterpieces,  he  puts 
these  grand  utterances  into  the  mouth  of  young 
David : 

I  have  gone  the  whole  round  of  creation:  I  sav/  and 
I  spoke: 

I,  a  work  of  God's  hand  for  that  purpose,  received  in 
my  brain 

And  pronounced   on   the  rest   of  his  handiwork — re- 
turned him  again 

His  creation's  approval  or  censure:  I  spoke  as  I  saw: 

I  report  as  a  man  may  of  God's  work — aKs  love,  yet 
all's  law. 

lo 


The  Christ  of  Broivning 

He  reaches  a  still  higher  tide  of  this  lordly 
conception,  and  takes  in  a  prophecy  even  of  Cal- 
vary as  an  expression  of  the  love  that  he  sings : 

.Would  I  suffer  for  him  that  I  love?  So  wouldst  Thou 
— so  wilt  Thou! 

So  shall  crown  Thee  the  topmost,  ineffablest,  utter- 
most crown — 

And  Thy  love  fill  infinitude  wholly,  nor  leave  up  nor 
down 

One  spot  for  the  creature  to  stand  in. 

Addressing  the  king,  the  young  minstrel  proph- 
esies : 

O  Saul,  it  shall  be 
A  Face  like  my  face  that  receives  thee;  a  Man  like  to 

me, 
Thou  shalt  love  and  be  loved  by,  forever:  a  Hand  like 

this  hand 
Shall  throw  open  the  gates  of  new  life  to  thee!     See 

the  Christ  stand! 

In  "A  Death  in  the  Desert"  he  sings : 
The  love  that  tops  the  might,  the  Christ  in  God — 

Putting  the  question  ever.  Does  God  love? 
And  will  ye  hold  that  truth  against  the  world? 

He  urges : 

I  say,  the  acknowledgment  of  God  in  Christ 
Accepted  by  thy  reason,  solves  for  thee 
All  questions  in  the  earth  or  out  of  it. 

In  "An  Epistle"  he  makes  Karshish,  an  Arab 
physician,  the  supposed  author  of  the  "Epistle," 
II 


The  Christ  cf  Our  Pods 

Y/ho  stoutly  resists  belief  in  the  raising  of  Laz- 
arus, finally  break  down  and  confess : 

The  very  God!  think,  Abib;  dost  thou  think? 
So,  the  All-Great  were  the  All-Loving  too — 
So,  through  the  thunder  conies  a  human  voice 
Saying,  O  heart  I  made,  a  Heart  beats  here! 

Thou  hast  no  power  nor  mayst  conceive  of  mine. 

But  love  I  gave  thee,  with  myself  to  love. 

And  thou  mayst  love  Me  who  have  died  for  thee. 

In  "Fears  and  Scruples"  he  sings  thus  beauti- 
fully his  high,  true  thought  of  God : 

Of  old  I  used  to  love  him, 

This  same  unseen  friend,  before  I  knew: 
Dream  there  was  none  like  him,  none  above  him — 

Wake  to  hope  and  trust  my  dream  were  true. 
Loved  I  not  his  letters  full  of  beauty? 

Not  his  actions  famous  far  and  wide? 
Absent,  he  would  know  I  vowed  him  duty; 

Present,  he  would  find  me  at  his  side 

Hush,  I  pray  yon] 
What  if  this  friend  happened  to  be — God? 

That  there  should  be  coupled  witli  such  a  con- 
ception of  God,  of  "Christ  in  God"  and  "God  in 
Christ,"  a  strong,  sweet  faith  as  beautiful  as  it 
was  buoyant,  is  but  to  be  naturally  looked  for. 
His  "Paracelsus"  voices  that  faith : 

I  go  to  prove  my  soul! 
I  see  my  way  as  birds  their  trackless  waste. 

12 


The  Christ  of  Broivniii^ 

1  shall  arrive!    What  time,  what  circuit  first, 
I  ask  not:  but  unless  God  send  his  hail, 
Or  blinding  fireballs,  sleet  or  stifling  snow, 
In  some  time,  his  f^ood  time,  I  shall  arrive: 
He  guides  me  and  the  bird.     In  his  good  time. 

In  "Reverie"  he  sings  the  same  strong  faith : 

I  know  there  shall  dawn  a  day — 

Is  it  here  on  homely  earth? 
Is  it  yonder,  worlds  away. 

Where  the  strange  and  new  have  birth 
That  Power  comes  full  in  play? 


Somewhere,  below,  above, 

Shall  a  day  dawn — this  I  know — 
When  Power,  which  vainly  strove 

My  weakness  to  o'erthrow. 

Shall  triumph 

I  have  faith  such  end  shall  be: 

From  the  first  Power  was — I  Icncw. 
Life  has  made  clear  to  me 

That,  strive  but  for  a  closer  view. 
Love  were  as  plain  to  see. 

He  does  not  leave  us  in  doubt  here  just  what 
he  means  by  "Power" : 

Power  is  love — transports,  transforms 
Who  aspires  from  worst  to  best. 

This  faith  which  he  here  sings  is  an  optimism 

that  inspires — a  "faith  that  works"  : 

Then  life  is— to  wake  not  sleep. 

Rise  and  not  rest,  but  press 
From  earth's  level  where  blindly  creep 

13 


The  Christ  of  Our  Poets 

Things  perfected,  more  or  less, 
To  the  heaven's  height,  far  and  steep. 

In   "Abt  Vogler"   his   faith   sings   out   more 
strongly,  clearly,  sweetly  still: 

To  whom  turn  I  but  to  thee,  the  ineflfable  Name? 
Builder  and  Maker  thou,  of  houses  not  made  with 
hands! 
What,  have  fear  of  change  from  thee  who  art  ever  the 
same? 
Doubt  that  thy   power  can  fill  the  heart  that  thy 
power  expands? 
There  shall  never  be  one  lost  good!     What  was,  shall 
live  as  before; 
The  evil  is  null,  is  naught,  is  silence  implying  sound; 
What  was  good  shall  be  good,  with,  for  evil,  so  much 
good  more; 
On  the  earth  the  broken  arcs;  in  the  heaven  a  per- 
fect round. 
All  we  have  willed  or  hoped  or  dreamed  of  good  shall 
exist; 
Not  its  semblance,  but  itself;  no  beauty,  nor  good, 
nor  power 
Whose  voice  has  gone  forth,  but  each  survives  for  the 
melodist 
When  eternity  affirms  th^  conception  of  an  hour. 

In  "Apparent  Failure"  he  sings  it  again : 

My  own  hope  is,  a  sun  will  pierce 
The  thickest  cloud  earth  ever  stretched; 

That,  after  Last  returns  the  First, 
Though  a  wide  compass  round  be  fetched; 

That  what  began  best  can't  end  worst. 
Nor  what  God  blessed  once  proved  accursed. 


The  Christ  of  Browning 

The  dying  Paracelsus  sings: 

If  I  stoop 
Into  a  dark  tremendous  sea  of  cloud, 
It  is  but  for  a  time;  I  press  God's  lamp 
Close  to  my  breast;  its  splendor  soon  or  late 
Will  pierce  the  gloom;  I  shall  emerge  one  day. 

That  a  faith  hke  this  had  no  fear  of  death  is 
but  a  natural  conclusion.  Browning  in  "Pros- 
pice"  sings  his  view  of  death — a  very  personal 
view  it  is,  too : 

Fear  death? — to  feel  the  fog  in  my  throat, 

The  mist  in  my  face, 
When  the  snows  begin  and  the  blasts  denote 
I  am  nearing  the  place. 


I  was  ever  a  fighter,  so — one  light  more. 
The  best  and  the  last! 

No!  let  me  taste  the  whole  of  it,  fare  like  my  peers. 

The  heroes  of  old; 
Bear  the  brunt,  in  a  minute  pay  glad  life's  arrears 

Of  pain,  darkness,  and  cold. 
For  sudden  the  worst  turns  the  best  to  the  brave, 

The  black  minute's  at  end, 
And  the  elements'  rage,  the  fiend-voices  that  rave. 

Shall  dwindle,  shall  blend. 
Shall  change,  shall  become  first  a  peace  out  of  pain. 

Then  a  light,  then  thy  breast, 
O  thou  soul  of  my  soul!  I  shall  clasp  thee  again 

And  with — God — be  the  rest. 

The    catholicity    of   his    faith    is    revealed    in 
'Christmas  Eve,"  where  he  tells  us  tliat  on  a 
15 


The  Christ  of  O/n-  Poets 

certain  night  before  Christmas  he  went  into  a 
chapel  where  the  service,  crude  and  unrefined, 
offended  his  taste ;  but  as  the  people  were  leaving 
the  building  he  had  a  realistic  vision  of  our  Lord 
coming  out  with  them  and  passing  him  by  un- 
noticed. An  unutterable  terror  came  over  him, 
and  he  cried : 

But  not  so,  Lord!     It  cannot  be 
That  thou,  indeed,  art  leaving  me — 
Me,  that  have  despised  thy  friends! 
Did  my  heart  make  no  amends? 

He  then  explains  and  confesses : 

I  thought  it  best  that  thou,  the  Spirit, 
Be  worshiped  in  spirit  and  in  truth 

And  in  beauty  as  even  zw  require  it — 
Not  in  the  forms  burlesque,  uncouth, 

I  left  but  now,  as  scarcely  fitted 

For  thee:  I  knew  not  what  I  pitied. 

But  all  I  felt  there  right  or  wrong, 

What  is  it  to  thee  who  curest  sinning? 

Am  I  not  we'ak  as  thou  art  strong? 

The  Lord  turned  and  threw  over  him  a  pardon- 
ing, purifying  glory ;  and  thus  he  exchanged  big- 
otry for  catholicity.  Who  will  suppose  this  to 
be  a  real  experience  of  the  poet's  ?  Only  he  who 
knows  nothing  of  Browning.  It  is  his  own 
quaint,  poetical  way  of  preaching  against  bigot- 
ry, which  he,  like  his  Lord,  despised. 

Dr.  Hearon,  already  quoted,  calls  attention  to 
i6 


TJic  Christ  of  Browning 

the  fact  tliat  our  poet  was  what  they  call  in  En- 
gland "an  evangelical" : 

Browning  reflects  the  processes  of  saving  faith. 
Take  the  story  of  the  conviction  of  the  two  lovers  in 
"Pippa  Passes."  The  lovers  were  murderers.  Up  to 
the  moment  at  which  the  girl  passes,  and  sings,  they 
were  unmolested  in  the  joy  which  they  had  in  each 
other.  But  their  delight  in  each  other,  the  Spirit. 
using  the  song  of  the  passing  girl,  reverses  in  mu- 
tual revulsion. 

His  relation  of  the  conversion  of  Paracelsus 
and  Karshish  is  also  quite  evangelical  in  tone. 

While  not  an  interpreter  of  nature  like  Words- 
worth, yet  Browning  was  not  insensible  to  its 
beauties ;  but  nature's  beauties  all  told  him  of 
God,  and  love,  and  the  Christ ;  as  an  example : 

Wanting  is — what? 
Summer  redundant, 
Blucness  abundant — 
Where  is  the  spot? 
Beamy  the  world,  yet  a  blank  all  the  same 
Framework  which  waits  for  a  picture  to  frame: 
What  of  the  leafage,  what  of  the  flower? 
Roses  embov/ering  with  naught  they  embower! 
Come  then,  complete  incompletion,  O  Comer, 
Pant  through  the  blueness,  perfect  the  summer, 
Breathe  but  one  breath, 

Rose-beauty  above, 
And  all  that  was  death 
Grows  life — grov.'s  love, 
Grows  love! 
2  17 


The  Christ  of  Our  Poets 

As  another  example: 

Love  greatens  and  glorifies 
Till  God's  aglow,  to  the  loving  eyes, 
In  what  was  mere  earth  before. 

We  might  wish  that  Browning's  expression 
had  been  simpler — it  would  then  have  been  even 
stronger  and  sweeter  than  it  is;  but  no  one  can 
wish  for  him  a  better  evidence  of  faith  in  God 
and  the  Christ. 

i8 


THE  MESSAGE  OF 
*'IN  MEMORIAM" 


"Jesus  said  unto  her,  I  am  the 
resurrection,  and  the  life:  he  that 
belieteth  in  me,  though  he  were 
dead,  yet  shall  he  lite :  and  whoso- 
ever liveth  and  belieteth  in  me  shall 
never  die.     Believcst  thou  this?" 

—John  xi.  25,  26 


// 

In  Memoriani  A.  II.  II.,  obiU  MDCCCXXXIII. 

Such  is  the  full  title  of  Lord  Tennyson's  mas- 
terpiece. Nothing  could  be  more  unpretentious ; 
and  the  poem  itself  wears  the  air  of  unstudied 
outbreathings  of  a  heart  bereaved,  now  telling  its 
grief,  now  telling  its  love  for  the  dead,  now  detail- 
ing events  in  the  life  that  has  passed,  now  relating 
something  of  that  life's  last  days,  and  never  es- 
saying to  teach  or  to  reason  or  to  moralize. 
Nevertheless,  "In  Memoriam"  has  for  us  all  a 
beautiful  message,  strong  and  clear  and  life-up- 
lifting. Its  message,  like  that  of  "Locksley  Hall," 
is  one  of  faith  in  the  Christ.  In  "Locksley  Hall" 
the  statements  are  suggested  rather  than  made, 
and  Christ  is  mentioned  but  not  named;  but  the 
very  opening  words  of  "In  Memoriam"  are : 

Strong  Son  of  God,  immortal  Love, 
Whom  we,  who  have  not  seen  thy  face, 
By  faith,  and  faith  alone,  embrace. 

Believing  where  we  cannot  prove, 


Thou  wilt  not  leave  us  in  the  dust: 
Thou  madest  man,  he  knows  not  why; 
He  thinks  he  was  not  made  to  die; 

And  thou  hast  made  him:  thou  art  just. 

The  song  of  faith  in  "Locksley  Hall"  is  rather 
a  pjean  of  victory  breaking  out  of  the  din  and 

21 


The  Christ  of  Our  Poets 

roar  of  battle;  but  "In  Memoriam"  is  itself  a 
song  of  faith,  clear-toned  and  melodious,  stealing 
out  from  under  cypresses  and  weeping  willows, 
now  all  aquiver  with  the  grief  of  a  widowed  spir- 
it, now  brightly  striking  a  higher  note,  the  hope 
of  immortality,  now  singing  strongly  its  virile 
faith  in  God.  The  very  things  we  would  expect 
to  find  in  an  "In  Memoriam"  are  all  here:  the 
sense  of  loss,  the  grief,  visions  of  the  past  and 
of  the  future,  thoughts  of  heaven,  consoling  facts 
and  considerations,  and,  greatest  among  them  all, 
a  strong,  sure  hope  of  immortality;  and  yet 
there  is  in  it  all  not  one  trite  phrase  or  word, 
not  one  conventional  utterance  or  suggestion; 
but  it  is  throughout  pervaded  with  a  most  re- 
freshing individuality  or  naturalness  sincere  and 
full  of  faith  in  God  and  his  Christ. 
He  sings  his  grief: 

I  sometimes  hold  it  half  a  sin 
To  put  in  words  the  grief  I  feel; 

yet  he  must  tell  it — 

In  words,  like  weeds,  I'll  wrap  me  o'er 
Like  coarsest  clothes  against  the  cold; 
But  that  large  grief  which  these  infold 

Is  given  in  outline  and  no  more. 

He  spurns  the  slavish,  doltish  comfort  that 
sometimes  comes  to  lower  souls  from  the  fact 
that  "loss  is  common,"  and  death  the  doom  of  all : 

22 


The  Message  of  '•'■In  Aletnorlam  " 

That  loss  is  common  would  not  make 
My  own  less  bitter,  rather  more: 
Too  common!     Never  morning  wore 

To  evening,  but  some  heart  did  break. 

He  finds  real  consolation,  however:  he  finds  it 
in  the  deathless  memory  and  fadeless  love  of  tlie 
friend  who  has  passed  from  his  sight : 
I  hold  it  true,  whate'er  befall; 
I  feel  it  when  I  sorrow  most; 
'Tis  better  to  have  loved  and  lost 
Than  never  to  have  loved  at  all. 

He  finds  it  in  the  hope  of  immortality,  to  him 
a  fact  rather  than  a  hope,  a  present  fact  as  real 
as  any  other  and  as  deathless  as  God : 

My  own  dim  life  should  teach  me  this. 
That  life  shall  live  forevermore. 
Else  earth  is  darkness  at  the  core, 

And  dust  and  ashes  all  that  is — 

What  then  were  God  to  such  as  I? 

'Twere  hardly  worth  my  while  to  choose 

Of  things  all  mortal,  or  to  use 
A  little  patience  ere  I  die; 

'Twere  best  at  once  to  sink  to  peace. 
Like  birds  the  charming  serpent  draws, 
To  drop  headforemost  in  the  jaws 

Of  vacant  darkness  and  to  cease. 

This  fact  of  immortality  was  to  him  not  mere- 
ly a  logical  fact,  but  a  real,  living  certainty:  he 
imagines  his  dead  friend  coming  to  him,  as  of 
old — //  it  zvere  so, 

23 


The  Christ  of  Our  Pods 

And  I  perceived  no  touch  of  change, 
No  hint  of  death  in  all  his  frame, 
But  found  him  all  in  all  the  same, 

I  should  not  feel  it  to  be  strange. 

He  tells  an  experience  common  with  those  of 
like  heart  and  faith : 

When  in  the  down  I  sink  my  head, 

Sleep,  Death's  twin  brother,  times  my  breath; 
Sleep,  Death's  twin  brother,  knows  not  death. 

Nor  can  I  dream  of  thee  as  dead: 

I  walk  as  ere  I  walked  forlorn. 
When  all  our  path  was  fresh  with  dew. 
And  all  the  bugle  breezes  blew 

Reveille  to  the  breaking  morn. 

He  restates  his  faith  in  immortality,  his  creed 
of  the  dead,  clearly  and  strongly,  thus : 

I  wage  not  my  feud  with  Death 
For  changes  wrought  on  form  and  face; 
No  lower  life  that  earth's  embrace 

May  breed  with  him  can  fright  my  faith. 

Eternal  process  moving  on, 
From  state  to  state  the  spirit  walks: 
And  these  are  but  the  shattered  stalks 

Or  ruined  chrysalis  of  one. 

Nor  blame  I  Death,  because  he  bare 
The  use  of  virtue  out  of  earth: 
I  know  transplanted  human  worth 

Will  bloom  to  profit  otherwhere. 

What  man  of  faith  and  thought  before  Tenny- 
son could  say  that  he  was  reckless  of  the  changes 
24 


The  Message  of  '-'-hi  Alemoriam  '* 

wrought  by  death  "in  form  and  face,"  and  the 
work  of  decay  and  of  the  very  worms,  so  thought- 
ful was  he  of  the  deathless  spirit  of  his  beloved 
dead  ?  Who  before  ever  spoke  of  "the  article  of 
death"  as  a  bearing  out  of  this  world  into  an- 
other, "the  use  of  virtue"  ? 

Evidently  the  surest,  strongest  consolation  that 
our  singer  has  sung  in  this  great  song  of  faith  is 
his  personal,  living  faith  in  Christ,  the  "Strong 
Son  of  God,  immortal  Love,"  of  his  first  stanza. 
Christ  was  real  to  him ;  hear  him : 

Thou  seemest  human  and  divine, 
The  highest,  hohest  manhood  thou: 
Our  wills  are  ours,  we  know  not  how; 

Our  wills  are  ours  to  make  them  thine. 

The  historic  Christ  and  the  living  Christ  were 
one  to  his  thought  and  faith,  the  Christ  who  was 
just  as  human  as  he  was  divine : 

And  so  the  Word  had  breath,  and  wrought 
With  human  hands  the  creed  of  creeds 
In  loveliness  of  perfect  deeds, 
More  strong  than  all  poetic  thought. 

The  poet's  thought  of  heaven  is  told  in  one 
strong,  simple  line : 

That  friend  of  mine  who  lives  in  God. 

Could  anything  be  finer?     Could  any  thought 
be  loftier  ?     Could  any  notion  of  heaven  be  truer  ? 
This  is  the  normal  result  of  a  living  faith  In  a  liv- 
25 


The  Christ  of  Our  Poets 

ing  Christ,  with  whom  the  soul  is  so  thoroughly 
acquainted  that  communion  with  him  is  as  real 
as  the  faith  in  him. 

With  such  faith  in  the  Christ,  it  is  but  natural 
that  wild,  rhapsodic  bursts  of  optimism  should 
break  out  of  this  song  of  sadness  and  ripple  like 
the  music  nature  makes  on  a  May  morning. 
That  richest,  strongest  song  of  optimism  ever 
sung,  which  begins, 

Ring  out  wild  bells  to  the  wild  sky, 

and  which  is  too  well  known  and  too  often  quoted 
to  be  repeated  here,  is  a  part  of  "In  Memoriam." 
The  last  stanza  reaches  this  lordly  climax: 
Ring  in  the  valiant  man  and  free, 
The  larger  heart,  the  kindlier  hand; 
Ring  out  the  darkness  of  the  land. 
Ring  in  the  Christ  that  is  to  be. 

His  optimism  was  not  altogether  a  hope,  dwell- 
ing in  future  tenses,  but  had  about  it  the  buoy- 
ancy of  a  vernal  present : 

And  all  is  well,  tho'  faith  and  form 
Be  sundered  in  the  night  of  fear. 

Consonant  with  all  of  this  is  the  beautiful 
prayer  found  in  the  introductory  stanzas: 

Let  knowledge  grow  from  more  to  more, 
But  more  of  reverence  in  us  dwell; 
That  mind  and  soul  according  well. 

May  make  one  music  as  before. 

But  vaster. 

26 


TJie  Message  of'''-Jn  Ale/iioriatn'''' 

That  Tennyson's  optimism  carried  him  ahnost, 
if  not  quite,  into  universalism  may  be  regretted; 
but  this  error  is  not  so  grave  as  is  the  God-dis- 
honoring unfaith  which  would  tell  us  that  Chris- 
tianity is  all  in  vain,  and  that  Christ's  magnifi- 
cent scheme  to  lift  a  fallen  world,  although  so 
wisely  laid  and  all  baptized  with  his  blood,  is  a 
failure,  a  fatal  folly.  We  had  rather  hear  him 
sing : 

Oh,  yet  we  trust  th'at  somehow  good 
Will  be  the  final  goal  of  ill, 
To  pangs  of  nature,  sins  of  will. 

Defects  of  doubt,  and  taints  of  blood; 

That  nothing  walks  with  aimless  feet; 

That  no  one  life  shall  be  destroyed 

Or  cast  as  rubbish  to  the  void, 
When  God  hath  made  the  pile  complete. 

That  these  lines  admit  of  an  interpretation  out 
of  harmony  with  the  teachings  of  the  New  Tes- 
tament is  beyond  question;  but  the  poet  rather 
suggests  than  asserts  the  teaching  which  may  be 
inferred  from  them ;  he  pleads  apologetically : 

So  runs  my  dream;  but  what  am  I? 

An  infant  crying  in  the  night, 

An  infant  crying  for  the  light, 
And  with  no  language  but  a  cry. 

He  hints  of  a  theological  conflict  within  him- 
self on  the  subject : 

27 


The  Christ  of  Our  Poets 

I  falter  where  I  firmly  trod, 
And  falling  with  my  weight  of  cares 
Upon  the  world's  great  altar  stairs 

That  slope  thro'  darkness  up  to  God, 

I  stretch  lame  hands  of  faith  and  grope. 
And  gather  dust  and  chafif,  and  call 
To  what  I  feel  is  Lord  of  all, 

And  faintly  trust  the  larger  hope. 

That  Tennyson's  "larger  hope"  finds  no  sanc- 
tion in  our  Lord's  teaching  is  very  evident;  but 
we  will  excuse  the  poet's  errant  thought,  when 
we  find  his  heart  so  true  to  the  Christ. 

"In  Memoriam"  was  written  in  1849,  when 
the  poet  was  barely  forty  years  of  age :  forty 
years  later  he  wrote  what  might  be  called  his 
last  song  of  faith,  one  of  the  sweetest  lyrics  ever 
written : 

Sunset  and  evening  star. 

And  one  clear  call  for  me! 
And  may  there  be  no  moaning  of  the  bar 

When  I  put  out  to  sea, 
But  such  a  tide  as  moving  seems  asleep, 

Too  full  for  sound  and  foam, 
When  that  which  drew  from  out  the  bound- 
less deep 

Turns  again  home. 

Twilight  and  evening  bell. 

And  after  that  the  dark! 
And  may  there  be  no  sadness  of  farewell 

When  I  embark; 

^8 


TJic  Message  of'-^In  Memoriam'''' 

For  tho'  from  out  our  bourne  of  Time  and 
Place 

The  flood  may  bear  me  far, 
I  hope  to  see  my  Pilot  face  to  face 

When  I  have  crossed  the  bar. 

We  cannot  imagine  a  more  fitting  song  for  tlie 
close  of  that  rich,  songful  life  of  faith.  It  re- 
minds us  of  that  beautiful  legend,  he  sang  so 
sweetly  in  early  life,  of  "The  Dying  Swan" :  only 
the  real  death-song  of  the  poet  is  a  hundred-fold 
sweeter  than  his  dream  of  the  mythical  song  of 
"The  Dying  Swan." 

29 


THE  OPTIMISM  OF 
**  LOCKS  LEY  HALL** 


"  We  know  that  all  things  work 
together  for  good  to  them  that  lote 
God"  — Rom.  viii.  23 


/// 

Reduced  to  its  last  analysis,  optimism  in  this 
connection  means  nothing  more  than  faith  in 
Christ.  Alore  than  anything  else  Christ  is  the 
Redeemer  of  the  world  :  a  failure  to  really  and 
positively  redeem  the  world  from  the  ruin  into 
which  sin  has  hurled  it  would  be  a  fatal  failure, 
a  negation  of  his  Christhood.  He  so  understood 
it,  for  when  he  announced  the  organization  of  the 
Church,  the  concrete  expression  of  his  move- 
ment, he  declared,  "The  gates  of  Hades  [destruc- 
tion] shall  not  prevail  against  it";  and  just  be- 
fore his  crucifixion  he  said,  "1  have  overcome 
the  world."  The  imagery  of  the  book  of  Reve- 
lation contains  clear  and  strong  predictions  of 
that  good  time  coming  when  Christ  shall  really 
have  fully  redeemed  the  world.  If  optimism 
means  faith  in  Christ,  pessimism  means  unfaith, 
only  another  name  for  infidelity. 

Lord  Tennyson,  the  son  of  a  minister,  and  with 
a  mother  specially  noted  for  her  piety,  grew  up 
"strong  in  the  faith"  of  the  Christ.  "Locksley 
Hall"  reveals  that  faith.  It  was  not  unthinking 
faith,  the  kind  which  exists  because  of  inherit- 
ance, or  because  some  leader  of  one's  life  be- 
lieves; but  it  was  a  virile  faith,  made  strong  by 
the  struggles  it  has  maintained.  There  are  hints 
3  33 


The  Christ  of  Our  Pods 

of  this  struggle  even  in  this  song  of  faith:  h^c 
sings  of  the  evil,  tlie  persistent,  apparently  un- 
conquerable evil,  that  obtrudes  everywhere : 

Cursed  be  the  social  wants  that  sin  against  the  strength 
of  youth! 

Cursed  be  the  social  lies  that  warp  us  from  the  livin;^ 
truth! 

Cursed  be  the  sickly  forms  that  err  from  honest  Na- 
ture's rule! 

Cursed  be  the  gold  that  gilds  the  straighten'd  forehead 
of  the  fool! 

lie  is  even  more  explicit  yet : 

All  things  here  are  out  of  joint: 
Science  moves  but  slowly,  slowly,  creeping  on  from 

point  to  point. 
Slowly   comes   a   hungry   people,   as   a   lion,   creeping 

nigher. 
Glares  at  one  that  nods  and   winks  behind  a   slowly 

dying  fire. 

He  speaks  of  tlie  struggle  through  which  his 
faith  passed,  and  of  the  exuberant  youth  and  vig- 
or of  that  earlier  faith : 

O  thou  wondrous  Mother-age! 
Make  me  feel  the  wild  pulsation  that  I  felt  before  the 

strife. 
When  I  heard  my  days  before  me,  and  the  tumult  of 

my  life 
Yearning  for  the  large   excitement  that   the   coming 

years  v/ould  yield 
Eager-hearted  as  a  boy. 

34 


The  Opimlsm  of^^LocksIcy  HalV 

lie  tells  the  optimism  of  that  halcyon  time  "he- 
'fore  the  strife" : 

For  I  dipt  into  the  future,  far  as  human  eye  could  see, 
Saw  the  Vision  of  the  world,  and  all  the  wonder  tliat 

would  be; 
Saw  the  heavens  fill  with  commerce,  argosies  of  mag- 
ic sails: 
Pilots    of   the    purple    twilight,    dropping    down    with 

costly  bales; 
Heard    the    heavens    fill    with    shouting,    and    there 

rained  a  ghastly  dew 
From  the  nations'  airy  navies  grappling  in  the  central 

blue; 
Far  along  the  world-wide  whisper  of  the  south  wind 

rushing  warm, 
With  the  standards  of  the  peoples  plunging  thro'  the 

thunderstorm; 
Till  the  war  drum  throbbed  no  longer,  and  the  battle 

flags  v/ere  furled 
In  the  Parliament  of  man,  the  Federation  of  the  world. 
There  the  common  sense  of  most  shall  hold  a  fretful 

realm  in  awe, 
And  the  kindly  earth  shall  slumber,  lapt  in  universal 

law. 

Then  he  tells  of  his  optimism  a^ter  "the  strife," 
an  optimism  all-victorious  in  "the  strife,"  and 
larger  and  stronger  because  of  "the  strife" : 

Yet  I  doubt  not  thro'  the  ages  one  increasing  purpose 
runs, 

And  the  thoughts  of  men  are  widened  with  the  proc- 
ess of  the  suns, 

35 


TJie  Christ  of  Our  Pods 


Not  in  vain  the  distance  beacons.     Forward,  forward 

let  us  range. 
Let  the  great  world  spin   forever  down  the   ringing 

grooves  of  change. 
Thro'  the   shadow   of  the   globe   we    sweep   into   the 

younger  day: 
Better  fifty  years  of  Europe  than  a  cycle  of  Cathay. 

Oh,  I  see  the  crescent  promise  of  my  spirit  hath  not 

set. 
Ancient  founts  of  inspiration  well  thro'  all  my  fancy 

yet. 

Tennyson  wrote  another  "Locksley  Hall," 
which  he  entitled  "Locksley  Hall  Sixty  Years 
After."  In  "Locksley  Hall"  the  plot  presents  a 
young  lover,  whose  suit  has  been  rejected,  and 
another,  a  mean,  unworthy  man,  has  been  ac- 
cepted because  of  his  wealth  and  title;  and  who 
rails  at  his  fate  and  raves  over  the  injustice  and 
meanness  of  society.  In  "Locksley  Hall  Sixty 
Years  After,"  the  same  man,  now  a  grandfather, 
counsels  and  argues  with  a  young  grandson  who 
has  met  a  like  rebuff.  The  two  episodes  are  as- 
sumed to  have  occurred  sixty  years  apart;  hence 
the  name  of  the  later  poem.  It  was  really  writ- 
ten some  forty  or  fifty  years  after  the  other. 

An  old  adage  says,  "Twice  a  boy,  and  once  a 
man."  Old  age,  like  verdant  youth,  is  peculiar- 
ly subject  to  the  temptation  that  makes  pessi- 
36 


The  Optimism  cf'^Lockslcy  Hair 

mists  of  weak  men.  So  in  the  later  poem  we 
nnd  evidences  of  an  old-age  conflict  with  doubt 
and  a  final  victory  of  faith.  Again  the  poet 
comes  face  to  face  with  the  rampant  evil  in  the 
world ;  he  rails  at  current  vices,  the  tendencies  of 
modern  literature  especially: 
Rip  your  brother's  vices  open,  strip  your  own  foul 

passions  bare; 
Down    with    Reticence,    down    with    Reverence — for- 
ward— naked — let  them  stare. 
Feed  the  budding  rose  of  boyhood  with  the  drainage 

of  your  sewer; 
Send    the    drain    into    the    fountain,    lest   the    stream 

should  issue  pure. 
Set  the  maiden  fancies  wallowing  in  the  troughs  of 

Zolaism — 
Forward,  forv/ard,  aye  and  backward,  downward  too 
into  the  abysm. 

He  storms  at  ecclesiastical  abuses : 
Love  your  enemy,  bless  your  haters,  said  the  Greatest 

of  the  great; 
Christian   love  among  the  Churches  look'd  the  twin 

of  heathen  hate. 
From  the  golden  alms  of   Blessing  man   has   coined 

himself  a  curse. 
Rome  of  Caesar,  Rome  of  Peter,  which  was  cruder? 

which  is  worse? 

He  parades  the  political  corruptions  of  the  day, 
especially  the  excesses  of  democracy : 
France  has  shown  a  light  to  all  men,  preached  a  Gos- 
pel, all  men's  good; 

37 


The  Christ  of  Our  Poets 

Celtic  Demos  rose  a  Demon,  shriek'd  and  slaked  the 
light  with  blood. 

Notv/ithstanding   all    this    rampant    evil   half 
dominant,  he  does  not  lose  faith : 

After  all  the  stormy  changes  shall  we  find  a  change- 
less May? 

After  madness,  after  massacre,  Jacobinism  and  Jac- 
querie, 

Some  diviner  force  to  guide  us  thro'  the  days  I  shall 
not  see? 

When  the  schemes  and  all  the  systems.  Kingdoms  and 
Republics  fall. 

Something  kindlier,  higher,  holier — all  for  each  and 
each  for  all? 

A^U  diseases  quenched  by  Science,  no  man  halt,  or  deaf 

or  blind, 
Stronger   ever  born   of   weaker,   lustier   body,    larger 

mind? 
Earth  at  last  a  warless  world,  a  single  race,  a  single 

tongue, 
I  have  seen  her  far  away — for  is  not  Earth  as  yet  so 

young? — 
Every  tiger  madness  muzzled,  every  serpent  passion 

killed, 
Every   grim    ravine    a    garden,    every    blazing    desert 

tilled. 
Robed    in    universal    harvest    up    to    either    pole    she 

smiles, 
Universal  ocean  softly  washing  all  her  warless  isles 

His  last  note  of  faith  is  loftier  and  stronger,  if 
38 


The  Optunlsm  of '•'■Lockslcy  HaW* 

possible,  than  any  other  note  of  this  twin  song  of 
Iiope  and  faith : 

Far  away  beyond  her  myriad  coming  changes  earth 

will  be 
Something  other  than  the   wildest   modern   guess   of 

you  and  me. 

Close  kin  to  it  is  the  closing  exhortation : 

Follow   you   the    Star   that   lights   a    desert   pathway, 

yours  or  mine. 
Forward,  till  you  see  the  highest  Human   Nature  is 

divine. 
Follow  Light,  and  do  the  Right —        .... 
Love  will  conquer  at  the  last. 

39 


THE  REGENERATION 
OF  EDYRN 


"Except  a  man  be  born  again,  he 
cannot  see  the  kingdom  of  God" 

— JOEN  iii.  3 

"If  any  man  be  in  Christ,  he  is 
a  new  creature  "  —2  Cor.  v.  17 

"As  many  as  received  him,  to 
them  gate  he  power  to  become  the 
sons  of  God,  even  to  thevi  that  be- 
lieved on  his  name  "         —John  i.  13 


IV 

Lord  Tennyson,  in  his  Arthurian  epic  entitled 
"Geraint  and  Enid,"  tells  the  story  of  Edyrn. 
He  was  a  cousin  of  the  beautiful  young  Enid, 
and  a  suitor  for  her  hand;  but  was  rejected  be- 
cause he  was  utterly  unworthy.  Love  so  spurned 
turned  to  hate,  and  all  the  demoniac  villainy  of 
his  baser  self  was  vented  upon  Enid  and  her  par- 
ents. With  bribes  and  misrepresentations  he 
turned  the  vassals  of  Yniol,  Enid's  aged  father, 
from  him,  seizing  upon  the  estate  by  means  of  a 
fictitious  claim,  and  thus  he  reduced  the  feudal 
lord  from  opulence  to  penury.  Just  in  the  dark- 
est hour  of  their  misfortune  Geraint  comes  to 
the  rescue,  challenges  tlie  villainous  Edyrn  in  a 
tournament,  overthrows  him,  and  spares  his  life 
only  on  condition  that  he  restore  to  Yniol  and  his 
family  their  wrested  fortune ;  and  tlien  woos  and 
weds  the  beautiful  Enid. 

Edyrn,  beaten,  humiliated,  cliecked  in  his  mad 
career  of  villainy,  comes  to  himself,  goes  to  Ar- 
thur's court,  repents,  reforms  thoroughly,  and  bc- 
com.es  one  of  Arthur's  famed  Knights  of  the 
Round  Table.  He  afterwards  "tells  his  experi- 
ence" to  Geraint  and  Enid : 

My  lord  Geraint,  I  greet  you  with  all  love — 


43 


The  Christ  of  Our  Pods 

Who  love  you,  Prince,  with  something  of  the  love 
Wherewith  we  love  the  Heaven  that  chastens  us. 
For  once,  when  I  was  up  so  high  in  pride 
That  I  vv^as  halfway  down  the  slope  of  Hell, 
By  overthrowing  me  you  threw  me  higher. 

This  sounds  not  unlike  tlie  doctrine  we  hear 
nowadays  from  the  popular  evangelistic  pulpit; 
and  it  is  as  philosophic  as  it  is  scriptural.  All 
real  upward  movement  in  human  life  must  begin 
in  a  humiliation.  The  Beatitudes,  constituting 
the  first  paragraph  of  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount, 
give  us  the  steps  upward  of  every  life  that  aspires 
toward  God  and  heaven;  and  they  begin  with, 
"Blessed  are  the  poor  in  spirit."  Long  before 
the  coming  of  the  Preacher  on  the  Mount,  an  in- 
spired bard  had  sung :  "The  sacrifices  of  God  are 
a  broken  spirit;  a  broken  and  a  contrite  heart, 
O  God,  thou  wilt  not  despise." 

To  Enid,  who  unwittingly  showed  some  trepi- 
dation in  his  presence,  the  reformed  Edyrn  said : 
Fair  and  dear  cousin,  you  that  most  had  cause 
To  fear  me,  fear  no  longer;  I  am  changed. 

Here  is  where  the  poet  puts  the  stress  in  his 
story;  and  here  evangelical  Christianity,  follow- 
ing the  New  Testament,  puts  the  stress:  Chris- 
tianity changes  men.  Peter,  with  his  uncontrol- 
lable impulsiveness ;  Thomas,  with  his  chronic  in- 
fidelity ;  Paul,  with  his  pharisaic  intolerance ;  Zac- 
cheus,  with  his  disloyalty ;  the  Samaritan  woman, 
44 


TJic  Rcgatcraiion  of  Edyrn 

with  her  unchastity;  the  malefactor  on  the  cross, 
with  aU  his  crimes,  were  changed  by  the  rehgion 
of  Jesus.  "Except  a  man  be  born  from  above, 
he  cannot  see  the  kingdom  of  heaven,"  is  the  sol- 
emn dictum  of  our  Lord.  His  religion  offers  to 
change  every  sinner  in  the  world. 

The  poet  stresses  the  need  of  a  change  and  the 
fact  of  that  change  by  shov/ing  what  Edyrn  was 
before  the  change  put  into  contrast  with  what  he 
became  by  it.  He  makes  the  convert  tell  it  to 
Enid: 

Yourself  were  the  first  blameless  cause  to  make 

My  nature's  prideful  sparkle  in  the  blood 

Break  into  furious  fiame;  being  repulsed 

By  Yniol  and  yourself,  I  schemed  and  wrought 

Until  I  overturned  him;  then  set  up 

My  haughty  jousts,  and  took  a  paramour; 

Did  her  mock  honor  as  the  fairest  of  the  fair, 

And,  toppling  over  all  antagonism, 

So  waxed  in  pride,  that  I  believed  myself 

Unconquerable,  for  I  was  well-nigh  mad: 

And,  but  for  my  main  purpose  in  these  jousts, 

I  should  have  slain  your  father,  seized  yourself. 

I  lived  in  hope  that  some  time  you  would  come 

To  these  my  lists  with  him  whom  best  you  loved; 

And  there,  poor  cousin,  with  your  meek  blue  eyes, 

The  truest  eyes  that  ever  answered  heaven, 

Behold  me  overturn  and  trample  on  him. 

Then,  had' you  cried,  or  knelt  or  prayed  to  me, 

I  should  not  less  have  killed  him. 

Human  ingenuity  could  hardly  have  concocted 
45 


The  Christ  cf  Our  Poets 

a  more  diabolical  scheme  of  cruelty  and  crime. 
Part  of  his  dark  scheme  carried.     He  tells  it  all : 

And  you  came — 
But  once  you  came — and  with  your  own  true  eyes 
Beheld  the  man  you  loved  (I  speak  as  one 
Speaks  of  a  service  done  him)  overthrow 
My  proud  self,  and  my  purpose  three  years  old, 
And  set  his  foot  upon  me,  and  gave  me  life. 
There  was  I  broken  down;  there  was  I  saved. 

King  Arthur  himself,  having  tested  thorough- 
ly the  converted  Edyrn,  bears  testimony  to  the 
thoroughness  of  his  conversion : 

This  work  of  his  is  great  and  wonderful. 
His  very  face  with  change  of  heart  is  changed. 

This  very  language  is  often  heard  in  the  mid- 
glow  of  the  modern  revival. 

The  world  will  not  believe  a  man  repents: 

And  this  v/ise  world  of  ours  is  mainly  right. 

Full  seldom  does  a  man  repent,  or  use 

Both  grace  and  will  to  pick  the  vicious  quitch 

Of  blood  and  custom  wholly  out  of  him 

And  make  all  clean,  and  plant  himself  afresh. 

Edyrn  has  done  it. 

The  wise  king  shows  his  faith  in  the  conver- 
sion by  trusting  fully  the  convert : 

I,  therefore,  made  him  of  our  Table  Round, 
Not  rashly,  but  have  proved  him  every  way 
One  of  our  noblest,  our  most  valorous, 
Sanest  and  most  obedient. 
46 


The  Regeneration  of  Edyrri 

This  whole  story  reads  as  if  its  author  were 
a  diseiple  of  General  Booth,  of  tlie  Salvation 
Army ;  or  of  Wesley,  the  fcimdcr  of  I\Iethodisni ; 
or  of  Moody,  the  great  evangelist,  so  lately  de- 
ceased. Cut  it  must  be  rernea:ibcred  that  Lord 
Tennyson  was  a  member  of  tl.e  Church  of  En- 
gland, and  not  known  to  have  any  sympathy  with 
tlie  evangelical  notions  and  methods  of  Wesley, 
Booth,  Moody,  or  any  of  the  great  revivalists  of 
these  later  centuries ;  and  furthermore  that  his 
'Idyls  of  the  King,"  as  lie  entitled  his  Arthurian 
epics,  were  but  his  own  poetic  versions  of  old 
myths  handed  down  a  thousand  years  or  more. 
Wliere  then  did  Tennyson,  or  the  legends  he 
voices,  get  the  evangelical  doctrine  of  regenera- 
tion so  strongly  and  so  clearly  taught  in  the  story 
of  Edyrn?  There  is  but  one  ansv/er:  just  where 
Wesley  and  Booth  and  Moody  and  all  of  us  get 
it — from  the  Nev/  Testament,  where  it  is  written 
down  by  the  pen  of  inspiration  from  the  lips  of 
our  Lord. 

47 


TENNYSON'S 
''HOLY  GRAIL 


"Blessed  are  the  pure  in  heart: 
for  they  shall  see  God" 

— Matt.  v.  S 

"Follow    .    .   .   holiness,  without 
which  no  man  shall  see  the  Lord" 

— Heb.  xii.  14 


If  "In  Memoriam"  must  be  classed  as  Lord 
Tennyson's  masterpiece,  it  must  be  conceded,  I 
think,  that  "The  Holy  Grail"  is  his  most  beauti- 
ful long  poem.  He  who  always  sought  the  rich- 
est melody  possible  to  rhyme  and  rhythm,  and 
the  most  gorgeous  drapery  in  v/hich  imagination 
could  clothe  its  thought,  reached  the  summit  of 
his  marvelous  capacity  in  this,  possibly  the  most 
beautiful  epic  ever  vv'ritten. 

It  retells  the  old  medieval  legend  of  tlie  search 
for  the  Holy  Grail  by  King  Arthur's  Knights  of 
the  Round  Table.     The  Holy  Grail  was 

The  cup  from  which  our  Lord 
Drank  at  the  last  sad  supper  with  his  own. 
Which,  from  the  blessed  land  of  Aromat — 
After  the  day  of  darkness,  when  the  dead 
Went  wandering  o'er  Moriah — ^the  good  saint, 
Arimathean  Joseph,  journeying,  brought 
To  Glastonbury,  where  the  winter  thorn 
Blossoms  at  Christmas,  mhidful  of  our  Lord. 
And  there  awhile  it  abode;  and  if  a  man 
Could  touch  or  see  it,  he  was  healed  at  once. 
By  faith,  of  all  his  ills.     But  then  the  times 
Grew  to  such  evil  that  the  holy  cup 
Was  caught  away  to  heaven,  and  disappeared. 

^This  chapter  first  appeared  as  a  communication  to 
the  Epworlh  Era. 

51 


The  Ch7'ist  of  Our  Poets 

For  a  long,  long  time  no  one  had  seen  the  Holy 
Grail,  though  very  many  with  prayers  and  fast- 
ings had  sought  to  see  it.  At  length,  half  a  thou- 
sand years  having  passed,  "a  holy  maid,"  sister 
of  Sir  Percivale,  a  nun,  whose  "heart  was  pure 
as  snow,"  got  a  vision  of  it,  and,  calling  her  broth- 
er, said : 

Sweet  brother,  I  have  seen  the  Holy  Grail; 
For,  waked  at  dead  of  night,  I  heard  a  sound 
As  of  a  silver  horn  from  o'er  the  hills. 

Oh,  never  harp  nor  horn, 
Nor  aught  we  blow  with  breath  or  touch  with  hand, 
Was  like  that  music  as  it  came;  and  then 
Streamed  through  my  cell  a  cold  and  silver  beam. 
And  down  the  long  beam  stole  the  Holy  Grail, 
Rose-red  with  beatings  in  it,  as  if  alive, 
Till  all  the  white  walls  of  my  cell  were  dyed 
With  rosy  colors  leaping  on  the  wall; 
And  then  the  music  faded,  and  the  Grail 
Passed  and  the  beam  decayed,  and  from  the  walls 
The  rosy  quiverings  died  into  the  night. 

Sir  Percivale  told  the  story  in  Arthur's  Hall, 
iand  every  knight  was  fired  v/ith  a  purpose  to 
catch  at  least  a  glimpse  of  the  wonderful  all-heal- 
ing Holy  Grail  so  long  withheld,  but  at  last  re- 
turned. Each  sought  it  in  his  own  chosen  way. 
Some  rode  one  way,  some  another — all  vowed  to 
give  one  year  to  the  quest. 

Sir  Percivale  rode  on  for  many  a  day,  and  saw 
52 


Tennyson'* s  '"'■Holy  GraiP'' 

many  things,  but  not  the  Holy  Grail ;  had  many 
promising  visions,  each  fading  and  leaving  him 
"alone,  wearying  and  thirsting  in  a  land  of  sand 
and  thorns."  When  he  set  out  on  his  quest  there 
came  to  him  a  prophecy  of  failure.  He  tells  it 
thus : 

Then  every  evil  word  I  had  spoken  once, 
And  every  evil  thought  I  had  thought  of  old, 
And  every  evil  deed  I  ever  did, 
Awoke  and  cried,  "This  quest  is  not  for  thee!" 

After  various  disappointing  experiences,  each 
winding  up  with  him  "alone,  Vv^earying  and  thirst- 
ing in  a  land  of  sand  and  thorns,"  he  sought  out 
"a  holy  hermit  in  a  hermitage,"  and  told  his  story, 
craving  advice.     The  good  man  said: 

O  son,  thou  hast  not  true  humility, 
The  highest  virtue — mother  of  them  all. 


Thou  hast  not  lost  thyself  to  save  thyself. 
As  Galahad. 

He  learned  the  hermit's  lesson,  and  saw  at  last 
the  Holy  Grail. 

And  who  was  Galahad?  He  is  called  the 
"Llaiden  Knight." 

"God  make  thee  good  as  thou  art  beautiful," 
S'aid  Arthur,  when  he  dubbed  him  knight. 

He  was  the  purest  knight  in  Arthur's  court — 
both  pure  and  beautiful.     Arthur's  prayer  was 
answered.     When  the  news  of  the  Holy  Grail's 
53 


The  Christ  of  Our  Poets 

reappearance  was  told  at  Camelot,  Sir  Galahad 
caught  the  nun's  spirit  and  "believed  in  her  be- 
lief," setting  his  heart,  with  a  sure  hope,  on  see- 
ing the  Holy  Grail;  and  he  saw  it  again  and 
again.  In  the  great  hall  at  Camelot  there  stood 
A  vacant  chair, 
Fashioned  by  Merlin  ere  he  passed  away. 

And  Merlin  called  it  "The  Siege  Perilous" — 
Perilous  for  good  and  ill;  "for  there,"  he  said, 
"No  man  could  sit  but  he  should  lose  himself." 

Sir  Galahad,  having  learned  the  real  secret  of 
salvation  as  revealed  in  the  Gospels, 
Said,  "If  I  lose  myself  I  save  myself." 
Then  on  a  summer  night  it  came  to  pass. 
While  the  great  banquet  lay  along  the  hall. 
That  Galahad  sat  down  in  Merlin's  chair. 

And  all  at  once, 

A  beam  of  light  seven  times  more  clear  than  day; 
And  down  the  long  beam  stole  the  Holy  Grail, 
All  covered  with  a  luminous  cloud. 

None  saw  it  save  Sir  Galahad.  The  others 
saw  the  cloud ;  but  he  saw  the  Grail.  Of  all  the 
knights  in  Arthur's  court  only  he,  who  had  lost 
himself  to  save  himself,  was  holy  enough  to  see 
it.  The  legend  stresses  the  fact  that  Arthur  was 
not  there.  Sir  Galahad  had  other  visions  of  the 
Holy  Grail,  and  he  followed  where  the  visions  led 
him  until  at  last  "one  crowned  him  king  far  in  the 
spiritual  city." 

54 


Tennyson'' s  ^'■Hcly  GraiP'' 

Sir  Lancelot  was  the  most  famous  kniglit  in 
Arthur's  court,  and  had  been  considered  the 
strongest  and  bravest;  but  his  heart  had  become 
very  impure: 

The  great  and  guilty  love  he  bare  the  queen, 

In  battle  with  the  love  he  bare  his  lord, 

Had  marred  his  face,  and  marked  it  ere  his  time. 

He  had  come  to  know  his  weakness;  and  once 
he  confessed  it : 

Me  you  call  great: 

but  there  is  many  a  youth 
Now  crescent,  who  will  come  to  all  I  am 
And  overcome  it;  and  in  me  there  dwells 
No  greatness,  save  it  be  some  far-off  touch 
Of  greatness  to  know  well  I  am  not  great. 

In  his  quest  for  the  Grail  he  had  tempestuous 
experiences.  At  last  he  was  brought  in  peni- 
tence to  the  foot  of  the  cross,  where  he  found 
pardon ;  and  then  he,  too,  saw  the  Holy  Grail. 
But  the  vision  was  not  clear  and  full  and  rich  like 
those  which  came  to  Sir  Galahad. 

Sir  Gawain  started  on  the  quest  strong  in  pur- 
pose and  hope,  but 

Found  a  silk  pavilion  in  a  field. 
And  merry  maidens  in  it; 

and  turned  from  his  search,  and  never  saw  the 
Holy  Grail  at  all.     The  race  of  Gawain  is  a  pop- 
ulous one.     Thousands  of  young  people  start  out 
55 


The  Christ  of  Our  Poets 


-J 


SO  purposeful  aiid  hopeful  and  ardent  in  their 
seeking-  for  the  best  things  God  has  for  them,  and 
are  soon  turned  aside  by  some  little  worldliness, 
and  thus  miss  all  their  high  aims  in  life. 

Such  is  the  legend  as  told  by  England's  great- 
est poet;  but  the  lesson  he  would  teach  is  richer 
than  the  legend  which  bodies  it,  and  more  beau- 
tiful than  the  gorgeous  poetry  that  tells  it.  It 
means  that  purity  of  heart  is  a  necessity  if  we 
are  to  reach  the  ideal  life  possible  to  us  and  come 
into  possession  of  the  wonderful  things  God  has 
for  his  children.  It  means  also  that  sin — all  sin, 
though  it  be  but  the  idling  of  a  Gawain  "in  a  silk 
pavilion"  with  the  innocent  maidens;  though  it 
be  but  the  merest  worldliness,  the  most  innocent 
omission  of  duty,  of  the  slightest  indifference — 
blinds  our  eyes  to  the  beauties  of  heaven  and 
deafens  our  ears  to  the  music  of  God. 

Mrs.  Browning  says : 

There's  nothing  small: 
No  pebble  at  my  feet  but  proves  a  world; 
No  skylark  but  implies  a  cherub  choir; 
No  hum  of  lily-mufifled  bee  but  finds 
Some  coupling  music  with  the  whirling  stars. 
Earth  is  crammed  with  heaven, 
And  every  common  bush  afire  with  God; 
But  only  those  who  see  take  off  their  shoes: 
The  rest  sit  around  it  and  eat  blackberries. 

And  only  the  pure  in  heart  "see" :  the  rest  are 
so  sordid  that  they  can  see  nothing  in  nature  ex- 
56 


Tennyson'' s  '''■Holy  GraW'' 

cept  it  be  somctliing  to  eat  or  to  drink,  and  so 
spirit-blind  that  they  see  nothing  in  grace  what- 
ever. "Blessed  are  the  pure  in  heart;  for  they 
shall  see  God."  One  with  greater  claim  to  in- 
spiration than  Tennyson  has  said :  "We  speak  the 
pliilosophy  of  God  in  a  mystery,  even  the  hidden 
philosophy,  which  God  ordained  before  the  world 
[began]  to  our  glory;  [and]  which  none  of  the 
princely  thinkers  of  this  world  knew.  .  .  . 
But  as  it  is  written.  Eye  hath  not  seen,  nor  ear 
■heard,  neither  have  entered  into  the  heart  of  man, 
the  things  v/hich  God  liath  prepared  for  them 
that  love  him.  But  God  hath  revealed  them  unto 
us  by  his  Spirit.  .  .  .  Which  things  also  we 
speak,  not  in  the  v/ords  which  man's  philosophy 
teacheth,  but  which  the  Holy  Ghost  teacheth. 
.  .  .  But  the  natural  man  receiveth  not  the 
things  of  the  Spirit  of  God :  for  they  are  foolish- 
ness unto  him :  neither  can  he  know  them,  because 
they  are  spiritually  discerned." 

Tennyson's  dream  of  the  Holy  Grail  and  Paul's 
revelation  tell  the  same  lordly  story.  Tliey  mean 
that  only  the  soul  which  has  passed  the  regenera- 
tive transforming  of  the  new  birth,  and  felt  the 
touch  of  a  Pentecostal  chrism,  may  think  the  tow- 
ering thoughts  of  God,  and  fathom  glorious  mys- 
teries unknown  to  common  minds.  They  teach 
that  a  regenerated  soul  means  a  reinvigorated  in- 
tellect as  well  as  a  purified  heart,  and  that  the 
57 


The  Christ  of  Our  Poets 

'child  of  God  must  know  more  of  God  than  any 
other,  and  learn  more  of  the  divine  secrets,  get- 
ting deeper  in  God's  mysteries,  and  keeping  more 
in  touch  with  God  and  heaven.  Only  "the  pure 
in  heart"  see  God. 

58 


LOWELL'S 
*^SIR  LAUNFAL 


"Inasmuch  cs  ye  have  done  it 
unto  one  of  the  least  of  these  my 
brethren,  ye  have  done  ft  unto  me  " 

Matt.  sxv.  40 


VI 

The  legend  of  the  Holy  Grail  has  been  tlie 
theme  and  inspiration  of  more  than  one  of  oiir 
poets.  Lowell,  as  well  as  Tennyson  and  Morris, 
sang  the  legend.     Lowell  says  of  his  poem : 

The  plot  (if  I  may  give  that  name  to  anything  so 
slight)  of  the  following  poem  is  my  own,  and,  to 
serve  its  purposes,  I  have  enlarged  the  circle  of  com- 
petition in  search  of  the  miraculous  cup  in  such  a 
manner  as  to  include  not  only  other  persons  than  the 
heroes  of  the  Round  Table,  but  also  a  period  of  time 
subsequent  to  the  date  of  King  Arthur's  reign. 

On  "a  day  in  June"  Sir  Laimfal  made  prepara- 
tions for  a  long,  wide  search : 

For  to-morrov/  I  go  over  land  and  sea 
In  search  for  the  Holy  Grail. 

As  was  the  custom  Vv^ith  the  knights  of  that  ro- 
mantic era  of  chivalry,  he  had  made  a  vow  to 
seek  the  Grail : 

Shall  never  a  bed  for  me  be  spread, 

Nor  shall  a  pillow  be  under  my  head, 

Till  I  begin  my  vow  to  keep. 

Here  on  the  rushes  v/ill  I  sleep, 

And  perchance  there  may  come  a  vision  true 

Ere  day  create  the  v/orld  anew. 

So  he  slept  on  the  pile  of  straw  that  night  in 
6i 


The  Chi'ist  of  Our  Poets 

his  castle,  intending  to  start  on  his  long  journey 
early  next  morning.     But  that  night 

Into  his  soul  the  vision  flew. 

He  dreamed  that,  just  as  he  had  planned,  he 
started  with  the  morning  on  his  tour  of  seeking; 
but 

As  Sir  Launfal  made  morn  through  the  darksome  gate, 
He  was  'ware  of  a  leper  crouched  by  the  same, 

Who  begged  v/ith  his  hand  and  moaned  as  he  sate; 
And  a  loathing  over  Sir  Launfal  came — 

For  this  man,  so  foul  and  bent  of  stature, 
Rasped  harshly  against  his  dainty  nature, 
And  seemed  the  one  blot  on  the  summer  morn —  i 
So  he  tossed  him  a  piece  of  gold  in  scorn. 

He  dreamed  that  he  rode  on  and  on  and  on, 
seeking  for  years  and  years,  undergoing  many 
hardships,  toiling  incessantly  in  his  search,  but 
finding  no  trace  of  the  long-sought  Holy  Grail. 

At  last,  when  old  and  gray  and  worn  v/ith 
years  of  toilsome,  fruitless  search,  he  found  him- 
self again  in  a  wild  midwinter  at  his  castle  gate. 
The  leper  was  there  also. 

Lank  as  the  rain-bleached  bone, 
a  thing  as  lone 
And  white  as  the  ice-isles  of  northern  seas    '~ 
In  the  desolate  horror  of  his  disease. 

The  discipline  of  his  suffering  through  those 
toilsome  years   had   wrought   a   change   in    Sir 
63 


LowcWs  '■^Sir  LamtfaP'* 

Launfal ;  he  had  become  more  Christlike,  and 
when  the  leper  said, 

For  Christ's  sweet  sake  I  beg  an  alms, 

he  replied  humbly : 

I  behold  in  thee 
An  image  of  Him  who  died  on  the  tree; 
Thou  also  hast  had  thy  crown  of  thorns — 
Thou  also  hast  had  the  world's  bufTets  and  scorns — 
And  to  thy  life  were  not  denied 
The  wounds  in  the  hands  and  feet  and  side: 
Mild  Mary's  Son,  acknowledge  me; 
Behold,  through  him,  I  give  to  Thee! 
Then  the  soul  of  the  leper  stood  up  in  his  eyes 

And  looked  at  Sir  Launfal,  and  straightway  he 
Remembered  in  what  a  haughtier  guise 

He  had  flung  an  alms  to  leprosie, 
When  he  girt  his  young  life  up  in  gilded  mail 
And  set  forth  in  search  of  the  Holy  Grail. 
The  heart  within  him  was  ashes  and  dust; 
He  parted  in  twain  his  single  crust, 
He  broke  the  ice  on  the  streamlet's  brink. 
And  gave  the  leper  to  eat  and  drink: 
'Twas  a  moldy  crust  of  coarse  brown  bread, 

'Twas  water  out  of  a  wooden  bov;l — 
Yet  with  fine  wheaten  bread  was  the  leper  fed, 

And  'twas  red  wine  he  drank  with  his  thirsty  soul. 

The  leper  no  longer  crouched  at  his  side. 
But  stood  before  him  glorified. 

Sir  Launfal  recognized  the  very  Qirist  indeed 
before  him,  and  his  whole  soul  went  out  to  him 
in  loving  devotion.     The  Master  said : 
63 


The  Christ  of  Our  Poets 

Lo,  it  is  I,  be  not  afraid! 

In  many  climes,  without  avail, 

Thou  hast  spent  thy  life  for  the  Holy  Grail; 

Behold,  it  is  here — tliis  cup  ivhich  thou 

Didst  fill  at  the  streamlet  for  -Me  but  now; 

This  crust  is  My  body  broken  for  thee. 

This  water  His  blood  that  died  on  the  tree; 

The  Holy  Supper  is  kept,  indeed, 

In  whatso  we  share  with  another's  need: 

Not  what  we  give,  but  what  we  share — 

For  the  gift  without  the  giver  is  bare; 

Who  gives  himself  with  his  alms  feeds  three — 

Himself,  his  hungering  neighbor,  and  Me. 

Sir  Laimfal  awoke  from  his  dream ;  he  had 
dreamed  it  all  out  in  the  vision  of  one  night — a 
psychological  possibility — and  the  vision  gave 
him  a  lesson  he  had  never  learned  before : 

The  Grail  in  my  castle  here  is  found! 
Hang  my  idle  armor  up  on  the  wall, 
Let  it  be  the  spider's  banquet  hall; 
He  must  be  fenced  with  stronger  mail 
Who  would  seek  and  find  the  Holy  Grail. 

Instead  of  going  on  his  senseless  search,  he 
gave  himself  unstintedly  to  helping  humanity 
about  him. 

The  meanest  serf  on  Sir  Launfal's  land 
Had  hall  and  bower  at  his  command; 

for  Sir  Launfal's  castle  was  ever  open  to  the  poor 
and  the  needy. 

The  lesson  of  Lowell's  song  is  easily  read ;  and 
it  is  as  sweet  as  it  is  true  and  strong. 
64 


MRS.  BROWNING'S 
GOSPEL  OF  REFORM 


"Blessed  is  he  that  considereth  the 
poor"  — Ps.  xii.  I 


VII 

Christianity  is  essentially  a  gospel  of  reform. 
Its  one  business  in  the  world  is  to  reform  its 
customs  born  of  sin,  and  turn  its  trend  of  life 
from  downward  to  upward.  Very  early  in  its 
history  the  coming  of  its  apostles  to  a  great  hea- 
then city  was  announced  in  these  words:  "They 
that  have  turned  the  world  upside  down  have 
come  hither  also."  It  is  a  fact  that  every  great 
social  reform  ever  inaugurated  found  birth  and 
impulse  and  guidance  in  Christianity.  The  slav- 
ery of  womanhood  and  the  oppression  of  child- 
hood, so  universal  before  Christianity  came,  and 
the  inhumanity  of  the  treatment  met  everywhere, 
even  among  the  Jews,  by  the  insane,  the  leprous, 
the  blind,  and  the  lame — not  to  mention  a  great 
host  of  other  intolerable  cruelties — speak  "trump- 
et-tongued"  of  the  need  of  the  reforms  Christian- 
ity has  brought,  and  is  still  bringing, 

Mrs.  Browning  sang  this  gospel  of  reform, 
which  is  the  gospel  of  the  Christ, 

To  one  clear  harp  in  divers  tones — 

sang  it  so  strongly  that  all  the  world  has  heard. 

In  one  of  her  sonnets,  entitled  "Hiram  Powers's 
Greek  Slave,"  she  sings  a  strong  protest  against 
that  species  of  human  slavery  so  long  and  so 
largely  excused  under  the  name  of  serfdom : 
67 


The  Christ  of  Oicr  Poets 

On  the  threshold  stands 
An  alien  Image  with  enshackled  hands, 
Called  the  Greek  Slave:  as  if  the  artist  meant  her 

To  so  confront  man's  crim.cs  in  different  lands 
With  man's  ideal  sense. 

Pierce  to  the  center, 
Art's  fiery  finger!  and  break  up  erelong 
The  serfdom  of  this  world!     Appeal,  fair  stone, 
From    God's   pure   heights   of  beauty,   against   man's 

wrong! 
Catch  up  in  thy  divine  face,  not  alone 
East  griefs,  but  west — and  strike  and  shame  the  strong, 
By  thunders  of  white  silence. 

A  stronger  protest  against  this  and  other  cry- 
ing cruelties  is  sung  in  her  longer  lyric,  entitled 
"A  Curse  for  a  Nation" : 

I  heard  an  angel  speak  last  night. 

And  he  said,  "Write! 
Write  a  nation's  curse  for  me, 
And  send  it  over  the  Western  Sea." 

This  curse  was  for  America  because  of  negro 
slavery.     She  demurred: 

Not  so,  my  lord! 
If  curses  must  be,  choose  another 
To  send  thy  curse  against  my  brother: 
For  I  am  bound  by  gratitude. 

By  love  and  blood. 
To  brothers  of  mine  across  the  sea. 

The  angel  insists:  she  argues  her  demurrer: 
68 


Mrs.  Broiuning^s  Gospel  of  Reform 

Evermore 
My  heart  is  sore 
For  my  own  land's  sins:  for  little  feet 
Of  children  bleeding  along  the  street: 
For  parked-up  honors  that  gainsay 

The  right  of  way: 
For  almsgiving  through  a  door  that  is 
Not  open  enough  for  two  friends  to  kiss: 
For  love  of  freedom  which  abates 

Beyond  the  Straits: 
For  patriot  virtue  starved  to  vice  on 
Self-praise,  self-interest,  and  suspicion: 
For  an  oligarchic  parliament, 

And  bribes  well  meant. 
What  curse  to  another  land  assign 
When  heavy-souled  for  the  sins  of  mine? 

She  then  urged  that  as  she  was  woman,  and 

Had  only  known 
How  the  heart  melts  and  the  tears  run  down, 

she  was  incapable  of  writing  a  curse ;  but  the  an- 
gel turned  back  on  her  the  argument  she  used : 

Therefore  shalt  thou  write 
My  curse  to-night. 
Some  women  weep  and  curse,  I  say 
(And  no  one  marvels)  night  and  day, 
And  thou  shalt  take  their  part  to-night: 
Weep  and  write. 

There  is  no  defense  to  be  made  for  negro  slav- 
ery ;  but  it  was  remarkable  wisdom  in  this  great 
Christian   woman   to   face   the  blind  prejudices 
and  unreasoning  partisanism  of  her  time,  and 
69 


The  Christ  of  Our  Poets 

recognize  the  truth  that  there  prevailed  a  "white 
slavery"  as  reprehensible  as  negro  slavery,  and 
far  worse  in  its  tendencies,  and  that  there  were 
other  great  evils  that  cried  to  Heaven  for  reform. 
She  revoices  part  of  this  protest  in  "The  Cry 
of  the  Human" : 

The  plague  of  gold  strides  far  and  near, 

And  deep  and  strong  it  enters: 
This  purple  chimar  which  we  wear 

Makes  madder  than  the  Centaur's. 
Our  thoughts  grow  blank,  our  words  grow 
strange: 

We  cheer  the  pale  gold-diggers — 
Each  soul  is  worth  so  much  on  change. 

And  marked  like  sheep  with  figures. 
Be  pitiful,  O  God! 

The  curse  of  gold  upon  the  land, 

The  lack  of  bread  enforces — 
The  rail-cars  snort  from  strand  to  strand. 

Like  more  of  Death's  White  Horses: 
The  rich  preach  rights  and  future  days. 

And  hear  no  angel  scoffing: 
The  poor  die  mute — with  starving  gaze 

On  corn-ships  in  the  offing. 

Be  pitiful,  O  God! 

No  protest  that  she  ever  uttered  was  so  deep 
and  earnest  and  strong  as  was  her  protest  against 
the  oppression  of  childhood.  Her  "Cry  of  the 
Children"  has  been  heard  all  around  the  world 
wherever  the  English  tongue  is  spoken;  and  it 
has  touched  the  world's  heart  profoundly,  insoir- 
70 


Mrs.  Browning'' s  Gospel  of  Reform 

ing  reform  and  molding  legislation.     Was  there 
ever  sung  a  plea  more  pathetic  than  this? 

Do  you  hear  the  children  weeping,  O  my  brothers, 

Ere  the  sorrow  comes  with  years? 
They   are   leaning   their   young    heads   against    their 
mothers, 
And  that  cannot  stop  their  tears. 
The  young  lambs  are  bleating  in  the  meadows. 

The  young  birds  are  chirping  in  the  nest, 
The  young  fawns  are  playing  with  the  shadows, 

The  young  flowers  are  blowing  toward  the  west; 
But  the  young,  young  children,  O  my  brothers. 

They  are  weeping  bitterly! 
They  are  weeping  in  the  playtime  of  the  others, 
In  the  country  of  the  free. 

She  probed  fearlessly  to  the  shameful  cause  of 
"The  Cry,"  a  condition  that  had  existed  from 
time  immemorial  and  to  a  fearful  extent  in  En- 
gland, and  that  has  existed  shamefully  in  Amer- 
ica until  a  higher  Christianity,  heeding  this  "Cry 
of  the  Children,"  has  compelled  legislation  abol- 
ishing it: 

"Oh,"  say  the  children,  "we  are  weary. 

And  we  cannot  run  or  leap; 
If  we  cared  for  any  meadows,  it  were  merely 

To  drop  down  in  them  and  sleep. 
Our  knees  tremble  sorely  in  the  stooping. 

We  fall  upon  our  faces  trying  to  go; 
And,  underneath  our  heavy  eyelids  drooping, 

The  reddest  flower  would  look  as  pale  as  snow. 
For,  all  day,  we  drag  our  burden  tiring 


0f 
The  Christ  of  Our  Poets 

Through  the  coal-dark,  underground; 
Or,  all  day,  we  drive  the  wheels  of  iron 
In  the  factories  round  and  round." 

As  she  sings  on,  the  picture  deepens,  the  pathos 
grows,  the  horror  of  the  condition  becomes  more 
and  more  appalling : 

Still  all  day  the  iron  wheels  go  onward, 

Grinding  life  down  from  its  mark; 
And  the  children's  souls,  which  God  is  calling  sun- 
ward, 

Spin  on  bhndly  in  the  dark. 

She  pleads  with  intense  pathos : 

Let  them  feel  that  this  cold  metallic  motion 
Is  not  all  the  life  God  fashions  or  reveals: 

Let  them  prove  their  living  souls  against  the  notion 
That  they  live  in  you,  or  under  you,  O  wheels! 

She  represents  these  children  being  told  of 
God  and  replying : 

Who  is  God  that  he  should  hear  us 
While  the  rushing  of  the  iron  wheels  is  stirred? 

They  are  urged  to  pray,  and  they  answer: 

Two  words,  indeed,  of  praying  we  remember. 

And  at  midnight's  hour  of  harm, 
"Our  Father,"  looking  upward  in  the  chamber, 

We  say  softly  for  a  charm. 
V/e  know  no  other  words  except  "Our  Father," 

And  we  think  that  in  some  pause  of  angel's  song 
God  may  pluck  them  with  the  silence  sweet  to  gather 

And  hold  both  in  his  right  hand  which  is  strong. 

72 


J\Ii's   Broivni7:g''s  Gospel  of  Reform 

She  closes  with  tliese  strong,  fearful  lines  : 

How  long,  O  cruel  nation, 
Will  you   stand,   to   move   the   world,    on  a   child's 
heart — 
Stifle  down  with  a  mailed  heel  its  palpitation, 

And  tread  onward  to  your  throne  amid  the  mart? 
Our  blood  splashes  upward,  O  gold-heaper, 

And  your  purple  shows  your  path! 
But  the  child's  sob  in  the  silence  curses  deeper 
Than  the  strong  man  in  his  wrath. 

Mrs.  Browning  wrote  also  "A  Song  for  the 
Ragged  Schools  of  London,"  in  which  she  pleads 

again  for  the  children  : 

Children  small, 
Spilt  like  blots  about  the  city, 

Quay  and  street  and  palace-wall — 


Ragged  children  with  bare  feet. 

Whom  the  angels  in  bright  raiment 
Know  the  names  of. 

She  pleads  earnestly,  eloquently,  sweetly: 

O  my  sisters!  children  small 
Blue-eyed,  wailing  through  the  city — 

Our  own  babes  cry  in  them  all: 
Let  us  take  them  into  pity! 

When  the  Master  sits  as  Judge,  and  we  all 
come  to  his  judgment  seat,  he  will  say  to  this 
gifted  singer  of  England  and  Italy,  this  Christly 
lover  of  the  children:  "Inasmuch  as  yon  have 
done  if  unto  the  least  of  these,  you  have  done  it 
unto  me." 

73 


"  THE  MERCHANT  OF 
VENICE"  TRANSFIGURED 


"Blessed  are  the  merciful:  for 
they  shall  obtain  mercy" 

— Matt.  v.  7 


VIII 

That  there  was  an  old  English  play,  very  in- 
ferior, which  Shakespeare  transformed  and  thus 
made  his  Merchant  of  Venice,  has  been  clearly 
shown  by  Dr.  Edward  Dowden,  of  Dublin  Uni- 
versity. The  old  play  was  a  product  of  the 
Dark  Ages,  when  Christianity,  half  robbed  of  its 
Bible,  was  half  pagan,  and  when  literature  was 
lifeless  and  tame;  hence  it  was  crude  and  worth- 
less until  Shakespeare,  in  the  large  light  and  lib- 
erty of  the  Elizabethan  era  of  gospel  emancipa- 
tion, transformed  it  into  the  strong,  virile,  mag- 
nificent work  of  art  known  as  The  Merchant  of 
Venice.  The  real  difference,  therefore,  between 
the  old  play  and  the  modern  is  a  difference 
wrought  by  the  religion  of  the  New  Testament : 
hence  the  work  of  art  we  know  and  admire  is 
but  The  Merchant  of  Venice  transfigured  by  the 
gospel  of  Christ. 

Antonio,  whose  occupation  gives  name  to  tlie 
play,  is  a  Christian.  His  character  is  one  which 
we  never  weary  of  contemplating,"  says  Dr.  Hen- 
ry N.  Hudson,  wlio  adds :  "The  only  blemish  we- 
perceive  in  him  is  his  treatment  of  Shylock,  .  .  . 
much  more  the  fault  of  the  times  than  of  the 
man."  He  is  a  real  Christian,  not  merely  in  th.e 
sense  distinguishing  him  from  a  Jew  or  a  Jvlo- 
77 


The  Christ  of  Giir  Poets 

hammedan,  but  one  that  can  say,  "I  hold  tlie 
world  but  as  the  world,"  indorsing  Gratiano's 
statement  that 

They  lose  it  that  do  buy  it  with  much  care — 

an  echo  of  our  Lord's  words,  "Be  not  anxious 
for  your  life"  (Matt.  vi.  25).  When  Shylock's 
knife  gleams  thirsty  for  his  heart's  blood  in  for- 
feit of  his  bond,  he  can  say : 

7  am  armed  and  well  prepared. 
Give  me  your  hand,  Bassanio:  fare  you  well! 
Grieve  not  that  I  am  fallen  to  this  for  you; 

Repent  not  you  that  you  shall  lose  your  friend, 
And  he  repents  not  that  he  pays  your  debt; 
For  if  the  Jew  do  cut  but  deep  enough, 
I'll  pay  it  instantly  with  all  my  heart. 

When  the  tide  unexpectedly  turns  and  the 
court  decrees  that  half  of  Shylock's  wealth  is  by 
law  Antonio's,  he  has  the  grace  to  decline  it,  and 
the  wisdom  and  justice  to  direct  it  to  Lorenzo 
and  Jessica,  Shylock's  son-in-law  and  daughter, 
whom  the  Jew  would  disinherit,  accepting  only  a 
'temporary  use  or  trusteeship  of  it  for  the  young 
people,  and  that  only  on  condition  that  the  court 
return  to  Shylock  the  other  half  forfeited  to  the 
state.  Thus  is  indicated  a  Christlike  absence  of 
resentment,  and  a  sweet  fulfillment  of  that  high 
law  of  the  Christ  which  says,  "Love  your  ene- 
mies, bless  them  that  curse  you,  do  good  to  them 
78 


'■'■The  McrcJiant  of  J'^em'ce^^  Trausjigured 

that  hate  you,  and  pray  for  them  that  despitefully 
use  you  and  persecute  you." 

In  Portia,  who  is  more  the  heroine  than  Anto- 
nio is  the  hero  of  the  story,  and  who  is  the  au- 
thor's one  great  female  character,  Shakespeare 
got  far  ahead,  not  only  of  the  age  in  which  he 
lived,  an  age  shadowed  by  medioeval  ignorance 
and  degeneracy,  but  of  this  age  also,  the  bright- 
est era  of  human  history.  His  Portia  is  a  new 
woman  in  the  highest,  truest,  best  sense,  a  woman 
idealized  nowhere  else  save  in  the  Bible,  and  pos- 
sible under  no  social  system  that  is  not  complete- 
ly saturated  with  Christianity.  Dr.  Hudson  thus 
characterizes  her:  "Eminently  practical  in  her 
tastes  and  turn  of  mind,  full  of  native  home-bred 
sense  and  virtue,  uniting  therewith  something  of 
the  ripeness  and  dignity  of  the  sage,  ...  as 
intelligent  as  the  strongest,  at  the  same  time  as 
feminine  as  the  weakest,  of  her  sex:  she  talks 
like  a  poet  and  a  philosopher,  yet,  strange  to  say, 
she  talks  for  all  the  world  just  like  a  woman." 
Mrs.  Jameson  thus  writes  of  her,  having  studied 
her  more  thoroughly,  perhaps,  than  any  one  else 
who  has  attempted  to  interpret  Shakespeare: 

She  is  full  of  penetrative  wisdom,  and  genuine  ten- 
derness, and  lively  vv'it;  but  as  she  has  never  known 
want,  or  grief,  or  fear,  or  disappointment,  her  wisdom 
is  without  a  touch  of  the  somber  or  the  sad;  her  affec- 
tions are  all  mixed  up  with  faith,  hope,  and  joy;  and 
her  wit  has  not  a  particle  of  malevolence  or  caustic- 

79 


IVic  Chf'lst  of  Our  Poets 

ity.  .  .  .  The  sudden  plan  which  she  forms  for  the 
release  of  her  husband's  friend,  her  disguise,  and  her 
deportment  as  the  young  and  learned  doctor,  would 
appear  forced  and  improbable  in  any  other  woman, 
but  in  Portia  are  the  simple  and  natural  result  of  her 
character.  The  quickness  with  which  she  perceives 
the  legal  advantage  which  may  be  taken  of  the  cir- 
cumstances; the  journey  to  consult  her  learned  cous- 
in, the  doctor,  Bellario;  the  spirit  of  adventure  with 
which  she  engages  in  the  masquerading;  and  the  de- 
cision, firmness,  and  intelligence  with  which  she  ex- 
ecutes her  generous  purpose — are  all  in  perfect  keep- 
ing, and  nothing  appears  forced:  nothing  is  intro- 
duced merely  for  theatrical  efifect.  But  all  the  finest 
parts  of  Portia's  character  are  brought  to  bear  in  the 
trial  scene.  ,  .  .  Her  intellectual  powers,  her  ele- 
vated sense  of  religion,  her  high,  honorable  principles, 
her  best  feelings  as  a  woman,  are  all  displayed.  .  .  . 
A  prominent  feature  in  Portia's  character  is  that  con- 
fiding, buoyant  spirit  which  mingles  with  all  her 
thoughts  and  affections.  •  .  .  Portia's  strength  of 
intellect  takes  a  natural  tinge  from  the  flush  and 
bloom  of  her  young  and  prosperous  existence,  and 
from  her  fervid  imagination.  In  the  casket  scene  she 
fears,  indeed,  the  issue  of  the  trial  on  which  more  than 
her  life  is  hazarded;  but  while  she  trembles,  her  hope 
is  stronger  than  her  fear.  While  Bassanio  is  contem- 
plating the  caskets,  she  suffers  herself  to  dwell  for  one 
moment  on  the  possibility  of  disappointment  and  misery. 
.  .  .  Then  immediately  follows  that  revolution  of  feel- 
ing so  beautifully  characteristic  of  the  hopeful,  trusting, 
mounting  spirit  of  this  noble  creature. 

Portia's  confidential  estimates  of  some  of  her 
suitors,  spoken  privately  to  Nerissa,  are  too  re- 
80 


"  The  ^Icrchant  of  Venice  "  Transfigured 

freshing  to  be  overlooked,  especially  as  they  in- 
dicate that  her  idea  of  real  manhood  is  that  told 
in  the  eighth  Psalm,  and  portrayed  in  the  New 
Testament.  Of  Monsieur  Le  Bon,  the  French 
lord,  she  says:  "God  made  him,  and  therefore 
let  him  pass  for  a  man."  Of  "the  young  German, 
the  Duke  of  Saxony's  nephew,"  she  says :  "When 
he  is  best,  he  is  a  little  worse  than  a  man;  and 
when  he  is  worst,  he  is  little  better  than  a  beast." 

Her  plea  with  the  Jew  in  the  trial  scene  is  be- 
yond question  the  finest  piece  of  the  play,  and  is 
saturated  with  the  teachings  of  the  Christ: 

The  quality  of  mercy  is  not  strain' d, 
It  droppeth  as  the  gentle  rain  from  heaven 
Upon  the  place  beneath:  it  is  twice  blest; 
It  blesseth  him  that  gives  and  him  that  takes: 
'Tis  mightiest  in  the  mightiest:  it  becomes 
The  throned  monarch  better  than  his  crown; 
His  scepter  shows  the  force  of  temporal  power, 
The  attribute  to  awe  and  majesty, 
Wherein  doth  sit  the  dread  and  fear  of  kings; 
But  mercy  is  above  this  scepter'd  sway; 
It  is  enthroned  in  the  hearts  of  kings. 
It  is  an  attribute  to  God  himself; 
And  earthly  power  doth  then  show  likest  God's 
When  mercy  seasons  justice.    Therefore,  Jew, 
Though  justice  be  thy  plea,  consider  this, 
That,  in  the  course  of  justice,  none  of  us 
Should  see  salvation:  we  do  pray  for  mercy; 
And  that  same  prayer  doth  teach  us  all  to  render 
The  deeds  of  mercy. 

6  Si 


The  Christ  of  Our  Poets 

"The  lyrical  boy-aiid-girl  love  of  Lorenzo  and 
Jessica"  is  as  beautiful  as  a  May  morning,  and 
as  pure  and  sweet  as  the  dew  on  roses.  There  is 
a  beautiful  philosophy  as  well  as  brilliant  poetry 
and  thrilling  faith  in  his  love-sick  warblings,  as 
Lorenzo  seats  Jessica  on  a  moonlit  bank,  and  says : 

Sit,  Jessica.    Look  how  the  floor  of  heaven 

Is  thick  inlaid  with  patines  of  bright  gold: 

There's  not  the  smallest  orb  which  thou  behold'st 

But  in  his  motion  like  an  angel  sings, 

Still  quiring  to  the  young-ey'd  cherubins; 

Such  }mrmony  is  in  immortal  souls; 

But  whilst  this  muddy  vesiure  of  decay 

Doth  grossly  close  it  in,  zvc  cannot  hear  it. 

The  following  may  not  claim  inspiration  from 
any  definite  utterance  in  the  New  Testament,  but 
finds  abundant  confirmation  in  the  place  ordained 
for  music  in  our  religion,  specially  indicated  by  the 
angelic  choirs  and  their  singing  heard  throughout 
the  Book  of  Revelation : 

Jessica.     I  am  never  merry  when  I  hear  sweet  music. 
Lorenzo.     The  reason  is,  your  spirits  are  attentive: 
For  do  but  note  a  wild  and  wanton  herd 
Or  race  of  youthful  and  unhandled  colts, 
Fetching  mad  bounds,  bellowing  and  neighing  loud, 
Which  is  the  hot  condition  of  their  blood; 
If  they  but  hear  perchance  a  trumpet  sound, 
Or  any  air  of  music  touch  their  ears, 
You  shall  perceive  them  make  a  mutual  stand, 
Their  savage  eyes  turn'd  to  a  modest  gaze 
82 


"  The  Merchant  of  V^cnlce  "  Transjigurcd 

By  the  sweet  power  of  music:  therefore  the  poet 
Did  feign  that  Orpheus  drew  trees,  stones,  and 

floods; 
Since  naught  so  stockish,  hard,  and  full  of  rage, 
But  music  for  the  time  doth  change  his  nature. 
The  man  that  hath  no  music  in  himself, 
Nor  is  not  mov'd  with  concord  of  sweet  sounds, 
Is  fit  for  treasons,  stratagems,  and  spoils ; 
The  motions  of  his  spirit  are  dark  as  night 
And  his  affections  dark  as  Erebus: 
Let  no  such  man  be  trusted. 

The  following  reminds  us  of  our  Lord's  temp- 
tation in  the  wilderness  and  Sermon  on  the 
Mount : 

The  Devil  can  cite  scripture  for  his  purpose. 
An  evil  soul,  producing  holy  witness. 
Is  like  a  villain  with  a  smiling  cheek, 
A  goodly  apple  rotten  at  the  heart: 
Oh,  what  a  godly  outside  falsehood  hath! 

The  Merchant  of  Venice  may  be  described 
by  declaring  it  a  most  artistic  compound  of  me- 
diieval  folklore  and  legend,  history,  common 
sense,  and  poetry,  all  thoroughly  saturated  with 
th.e  spirit  of  the  gospel,  making  of  it  one  of  the 
most  magnificent  productions  of  human  genius. 
83 


THE  GOSPEL  IN 
"LALLA  ROOKH" 


"The  sacrifices  of  God  are  a 
broken  spirit :  a  broken  and  a  con- 
trite  heart,  O  God.  thou  wilt  not 
despise  "  _Ps.  ii.  17 


IX 

Of  the  four  story-songs,  or  light  epics,  which 
make  up  Moore's  "Lalla  Rookh,"  the  shortest 
and  brightest  is  "Paradise  and  the  Peri." 
Though  a  sort  of  fairy  tale  with  a  mythological 
setting,  yet  it  is  instinct  with  the  spirit  of  the 
gospel. 

The  Peri,  in  Persian  mythology,  was  one  of  a 
race  of  fallen  angels  seeking  and  expecting  res- 
toration to  their  lost  paradise. 

One  morn  a  Peri  at  the  gate 

Of  Eden  stood  disconsolate; 
And  as  she  listened  to  the  Springs 

Of  Life  within,  like  music  flowing, 
And  caught  the  light  upon  her  wings 

Through  the  half-open  portal  glowing, 
She  wept  to  think  her  recreant  race 
Should  e'er  have  lost  that  glorious  place. 

Pier  longing  for  the  lost  Eden  grew  intenser 
as  she  lingered.     She  soliloquizes  : 

Go,  wing  thy  flight  from  star  to  star, 
From  world  to  luminous  world,  as  far 

As  the  universe  spreads  its  flaming  wall; 
Take  all  the  pleasures  of  all  the  spheres, 
And  multiply  each  through  endless  years — 
One  minute  of  heaven  is  worth  them  all. 

Tlie  warder  at  the  gate  saw  and  heard  her  and 
was  touched : 

i^7 


The  Christ  of  Our  Poets 

"Nymph  of  a  fair  but  erring  line!" 

Gently  he  said,  "one  hope  is  thine: 

'Tis  written  in  the  book  of  fate, 

■  The  Peri  yet  may  be  forgiven 

WJw  brings  to  this  Eternal  Gate 

The  gift  that  is  tnost  dear  to  Heaven." 

She  was  delighted  at  the  bare  possibility  of 
earning  entrance,  and  sped  away  to  begin  her 
search : 

Down  the  blue  vault  the  Peri  flies, 
And,  lighted  earthward  by  a  glance 

That  broke  just  then  from  morning's  eyes, 
Hung  hovering  o'er  our  world's  expanse, 

wondering  just  where  to  begin  her  search.     She 

knew  the  wealth 

Of  every  urn 
In  which  unnumbered  rubies  burn. 

She  knew  also 

Where  the  Isles  of  Perfume  are 
Many  a  fathom  down  in  the  sea 
To  the  south  of  sun-bright  Araby. 

As  she  pondered  the  problem  she  flew  aimless- 
ly along : 

While  thus  she  mused  her  pinions  fanned 
The  air  of  that  sweet  Indian  land, 
Whose  air  is  balm,  whose  ocean  spreads 
O'er  coral  rocks  and  amber  beds. 

The  smell  of  death 
Came  reeking  from  those  spicy  bowers, 
88 


The  Gospel  in  ^'Lalla  Rookh''' 

And  man,  the  sacrifice  of  man, 

Mingled  his  taint  with  every  breath 
Upwafted  from  the  innocent  flowers. 

Mahmood  of  Gazna,  the  blood-thirsty  conquer- 
or of  India,  was  in  the  midst  of  his  awful  work. 
The  Peri  saw  a  youth  dying  rather  than  to  become 
traitor  to  his  bleeding  country;  she  gathered  up 
the  last  drop  of  his  life's  blood  and  flew  away 
with  it,  singing : 

Oh !  if  there  be  on  this  earthly  sphere, 

A  boon,  an  offering  that  Heaven  holds  dear, 

'Tis  the  last  libation  Liberty  draws 

From  the  heart  that  bleeds  and  breaks  in  her  cause. 

She  bore  it  to  heaven's  gate,  but  it  did  not 
avail.  She  was  undaunted,  however,  and  flew 
away  to  continue  her  search. 

On  the  banks  of  the  Nile  she  found  a  lovely 
youth  dying  of  an  awful  pestilence,  and  his  fair 
young  bride  ministering  to  him  and  dying  her- 
self in  the  midst  of  her  ministering.  Such  beau- 
tiful love  and  self-sacrificing  devotion  seemed  to 
the  Peri  costlier  than  anything  she  had  ever 
known ;  so  she  carried  to  the  closed  gate  of  heav- 
en the  dying  sigh  of  the  young  wife.  But  the 
charm  failed,  and  the  warder  said : 

True  was  the  maiden — and  her  story, 
Written  in  light  o'er  Allah's  head, 
By  seraph  eyes  shall  long  be  read. 

But,  Peri,  see — the  crystal  bar 

Of  Eden  moves  not — holier  far 
89 


The  Christ  of  Our  Poets 

Than  even  this  sigh  the  boon  must  be 
That  opes  the  gates  of  Heaven  for  thee. 

Then  to  "Syria's  land  of  roses"  the  still  tin- 
.daunted  Peri  bent  her  flight  and  search, 

If  haply  there  may  lie  concealed 
Beneath  those  chambers  of  the  sun 

Some  amulet  of  gems  annealed 

In  upper  fires,  some  tablet  sealed 
With  the  great  name  of  Solomon, 
Which,  spelled  by  her  illumined  eyes, 

May  teach  her  where,  beneath  the  moon 

In  earth  or  ocean,  lies  the  boon 

slie  was  seeking.     At  length  one  afternoon, 

When  o'er  the  vale  of  Baalbec  winging 

Slowly,  she  saw  a  child  at  play, 
Among  the  rosy  wild  flowers  singing, 

As  rosj'  and  as  wild  as  thej'. 

Wlnle  interestedly  watching  the  boy, 

She  saw  a  wearied  man  dismount 
From  his  hot  steed. 

With  her  more  than  human  eyes  the  Peri  read 
from  the  man's  black  heart  the  long,  dark  record 
of  his  fearfully  wicked  life — 

Dark  tales  of  many  a  ruthless  deed: 
The  ruined  maid,  the  shrine  profaned. 
Oaths  broken,  and  the  threshold  stained 
With  blood  of  guests. 

Just  then  "the  vesper  call  to  prayer"  was  heard. 
90 


TJic  Gospel  i?i  ^'■Lalla  RookJi''' 

The  boy  then  started  from  the  bed 
Of  flowers  where  he  had  laid  his  head, 
And  down  upon  the  fragrant  sod 

Knelt  with  his  forehead  to  the  south, 
'Lisping  the  eternal  name  of  God 

From  purity's  own  cherub  mouth, 
And  looking,  while  his  hands  and  eyes    ) 
Were  lifted  to  the  glowing  skies, 
Like  a  stray  babe  of  Paradise 

Just  lighted  on  the  flowery  plain, 

And  seeking  for  its  home  again. 

The  man  of  sin  saw  the  child,  and  was  touched 

profoundly : 

Memory  ran 
O'er  many  a  year  of  guilt  and  strife, 
Flew  o'er  the  dark  flood  of  his  life, 

back  to  the  long-dead  beautiful  past  when  he  was 
a  pure  boy.  He  thought  of  what  he  once  was, 
and  then  of  what  he  had  become. 

He  hung  his  head — each  noble  aim 

And  hope  and  feeling  which  had  slept 
From  boyhood's  hour  that  instant  came 

Fresh  o'er  him,  and  he  wept — he  wept. 
Blest  tears  of  soulfelt  penitence. 

In  whose  benign,  redeeming  flow 
Is  felt  the  first,  the  only  sense 

Of  guiltless  joy  that  guilt  can  know. 

The  Peri  caught  the  tear  of  penitence  shed  by 
this  man  of  sin,  and  bore  it  hopefully  to  the  long- 
closed  gate  of  Eden.  The  charm  prevailed,  the 
gate  flew  open,  and  slie  passed  through,  shouting, 

9' 


The  Christ  of  Our  Poets 

Joy,  joy  forever!  my  task  is  done — 
The  gates  are  passed  and  Heaven  is  won. 

Not  the  patriotism  that  would  freely  give  life 
itself  to  save  one's  native  land — and  God  loves 
patriotism;  not  the  richest,  purest  love  that  ever 
nestled  in  a  human  heart  or  expressed  itself  in 
sublime  self-sacrifice — and  the  very  genius  of  our 
religion  is  love ;  but  true,  heartfelt  contrition  over 
sin  is 

The  gift  that  is  most  dear  to  Heaven. 

So  runs  the  poet's  gorgeous  song;  and  the 
sweet  singer  of  Israel,  so  long  ago,  under  the 
guidance  of  the  Holy  Spirit  of  inspiration,  sang, 
"The  sacrifices  of  God  are  a  broken  spirit;  a 
broken  and  a  contrite  heart,  O  God,  thou  wilt  not 
despise" ;  and  our  Lord  uttered  his  sv/eetest  par- 
able to  prove  and  illustrate  the  truth  "that  joy 
shall  be  in  heaven  over  one  sinner  that  repenteth 
more  than  over  ninety  and  nine  just  persons, 
which  need  no  repentance."  It  is  the  gladdest 
note  of  the  gospel ;  for  we  are  all  by  nature  sin- 
ners, and  are  most  blessed  in  having  a  heavenly 
Father  and  a  redeeming  Christ  so  ready  to  help 
and  save  whenever  we  turn  penitently  seeking 
salvation.  The  poet's  thought  here  is  as  true  as 
his  telling  it  is  beautiful;  and  the  truth  he  illus- 
trates is  as  sweet  as  the  almost  matchless  music  of 
his  faultless  rhyme  and  rhythm. 
92 


MOORE'S 
SONG  OF  SIN 


"  To  he  carnally  minded  is  death. 
.  .  .  Because  the  carnal  mind  is 
enmity  against  God:  for  it  is  not 
subject  to  the  law  of  God,  neither 
indeed  can  be  "  —Rom.  viii.  6, 7 


X 

One  of  the  gorgeous  oriental  songs  that  make 
up  Moore's  "Lalla  Rookh"  is  entitled  "The  Veiled 
Prophet  of  Khorassan" : 

In  that  delightful  Province  of  the  Sun, 
The  first  of  Persian  lands  he  shines  upon, 
Where,  all  the  loveliest  children  of  his  beam, 
Flowerets  and  fruits  blush  over  every  stream, 
And  fairest  of  all  streams,  the  Murga  roves 
Among  Meron's  bright  palaces  and  groves — 
There,  on  that  throne  to  which  the  blind  belief 
Of  millions  raised  him,  sat  the  Prophet-chief, 
The  Great  Mokanna. 

The  features  of  this  gifted,  unscrupulous  man 
were  so  utterly  revolting,  the  result  of  a  congeni- 
tal deformity,  that  he  was  compelled  to  conceal 
them.     He  made  this  necessity  the  occasion  of  a 

fraud : 

O'er  his  features  hung 
The  Veil,  the  Silver  Veil,  which  he  had  flung 
In  mercy  there,  to  hide  from  mortal  sight 
His  dazzling  brow,  till  man  could  bear  its  light. 
For  far  less  luminous — his  votaries  said — 
Were  even  the  gleams  miraculously  shed 
O'er  Moses'  face,  when  down  the  Mount  he  trod, 
All  glowing  from  the  presence  of  his  God. 

Morbidly  mortified  over  his  revolting  misfor- 
tune, he  had  become  a  villainous  misanthrope. 
He  spent  his  entire  life,  and  used  all  of  his  su- 
95 


The  Christ  of  Oiw  Poets 

perior  talents,  in  perpetuating  this  gigantic  de- 
ception ;  luring  the  noblest  youths  of  the  land  into 
his  ranks  only  to  be  slaughtered  in  his  insane  ex- 
peditions for  conquest;  compelling,  by  the  force 
of  superstitious  fear,  the  loveliest  maidens  to  en- 
ter his  harem  only  to  die  broken-hearted  over 
blighted  lives ;  conquering  cities  that  dared  to  re- 
sist his  oppressive  aggressions  only  to  put  even 
the  defenseless  women  and  children  to  the  sword 
— thus  gloating  with  demoniac  delight  over  the 
sufferings  of  his  victims.  The  poet  pictures  the 
wretch  Soliloquizing  thus : 

"Yes,  ye  vile  race,  for  hell's  amusement  given, 
Too  mean  for  earth,  yet  claiming  kin  vi^ith  heaven. 

Soon  shall  I  plant  this  foot  upon  the  neck 
Of  your  foul  race,  and  without  fear  or  check. 
Luxuriating  in  hate,  avenge  my  shame, 
My  deepfclt,  long  nurst  loathing  of  man's  name: 

I'll  sweep  my  darkening,  desolating  way. 
Weak  man  my  instrument,  cursed  man  my  prey. 

How  shall  I  laugh,  when  trumpeted  along 
In  lying  speech  and  still  more  lying  song!" 

Among  the  many  beautiful  maidens  lured  into 
his  harem  was  the  lovely  Zelica,  whose  lover,  the 
brave,  strong  young  warrior  Azim,  was  repre- 
sented to  her  as  dead.  In  the  wild  delirium  of 
her  grief,  she  had  been  induced  to  believe  that  by 
96 


Afoorc's  So7ig-  of  Sin 

entering  the  harem  of  "the  divine  Mokanna"  she 
would  fit  herself  for  paradise  and  insure  meeting 
with  Azim  there. 

These  were  the  wildering  dreams,  whose  curst  deceit 
Had  chained  her  soul  beneath  the  tempter's  feet, 
And  made  her  think  even  damning  falsehood  sweet. 

He  had  bound  her  to  him  with  a  fearful  oath 
over  a  goblet  of  blood  in  a  charnel  house.  Her 
superstition,  or  her  semi-insanity,  her  grief,  and 
her  helplessness  made  the  awful  oath  a  bond  she 
could  not  break;  and  when  she  discovered  that 
her  Azim  was  not  dead,  and  that  IMokanna  was 
only  a  horrible  fraud,  she  clung  to  him  hope- 
lessly, helplessly,  insanely.  When  "The  Veiled 
Prophet"  found  that  Zelica  had  discovered  that 
he  was  an  impostor,  he  threw  off,  in  her  presence, 
all  semblance: 

"Yes,  my  sworn  bride,  let  others  seek  in  bowers 

Their  bridal  place — the  charnel  vault  was  ours! 

Instead  of  scents  and  balms,  for  thee  and  me 

Rose  the  rich  steams  of  sweet  mortality — 

Gay,  flickering  death-lights  shone  while  we  were  wed, 

And  for  our  guests  a  row  of  goodly  dead. 

One  moment  more — from  what  this  n5ght  hath  passed, 
I  see  thou  knowest  me,  knowest  me  well  at  last: 

And  now  thou  seest  my  soul's  angelic  hue, 
'Tis  time  these  features  were  uncurtained  too. 


97 


2^iie  Christ  cf  Gur  Poets 

Turn  and  look — then  wonder,  if  thou  wilt, 
That  I  should  hate,  should  take  revenge,  by  guilt, 
Upon  the  hand  whose  mischief  or  whose  mirth 
Sent  me  thus  maimed  and  monstrous  upon  earth: 

Here — judge  if  hell,  with  all  its  powers  to  damn. 
Can  add  one  curse  to  the  foul  thing  I  am!" 
He  raised  his  veil — the  maid  turned  slowly  round, 
Look'd  at  him — shrieked — and  sank  upon  the  ground. 

This  fearful  monster  was  soon  defeated  in 
battle,  and  ended  his  wretched  life  by  an  aw- 
ful suicide. 

The  literature  of  the  world  does  not  contain 
the  portraiture  of  a  more  repulsive  character,  nor 
a  deeper,  darker,  more  degrading  delusion,  than 
does  this  song  of  sin,  "The  Veiled  Prophet  of 
Khorassan" ;  and,  whether  the  author  so  intended 
it  or  not,  nothing  that  v/as  ever  told  more  truly 
and  strikingly  illustrates  "the  carnal  mind"  of 
which  Paul  writes,  "the  corruption  of  the  nature 
of  every  man,  that  naturally  is  engendered  of  the 
offspring  of  Adam,  whereby  man  is  very  far  gone 
from  original  righteousness,  and  of  his  own  na- 
ture inclined  to  evil,  and  that  continually."  ^  Be- 
hind a  veil  of  superficial  respectability,  which 
apes  the  airs  of  purity  and  nobility,  there  hides, 
like  the  malformed  face  and  black  heart  of  the 

'Article  VH.  of  our  Church.  See  Discipline,  para- 
graph 7. 

98 


AToore's  So7tg  of  Sin 

"Veiled  Prophet,"  all  unsuspected  by  the  unthink- 
ing throng,  "the  carnal  mind."  Even  those 
whose  better  judgment  compels  them  to  confess 
the  existence  of  this  "corruption  of  the  nature" 
can  hardly  be  brought  to  see  how  foul  and  debas- 
ing it  is — the  monster  is  veiled.  We  are  inclined 
to  half  believe  that  the  monster  hidden  there  is 
not  much  of  a  monster  after  all — though  a  "car- 
nal mind,"  not  very  carnal ;  the  monster  is  v.eiled 
— a  veritable  Mokanna. 

The  saddest  feature  of  this  widespread,  sad 
delusion  is,  that  the  victims  themselves,  the  very 
tools  of  the  "Veiled  Prophet,"  are  basely  de- 
ceived. They  think  and  speak  of  sins  as  "little 
sins,"  and  freely  confess  them  under  euphemis- 
tic pet  names,  making  light  of  any  effort  to  con- 
sider them  as  serious,  never  dreaming  at  all  that 
they  are  but  the  normal  outcroppings  of  a  Mo- 
kanna with  the  ugly  name  of  "carnal  mind"  and 
the  repulsive  characterization  of  "the  corruption 
of  the  nature." 

Moore,  in  this  song  of  sin,  has  painted  sin  very 
faithfully;  but  there  can  be  no  objection  to  his 
realism,  because  it  is  a  realism  faithfully  revolt- 
ing, uncondoned,  and  naturally  meeting  its  meed 
of  retribution.  The  lesson  he  teaches  is  a  very 
righteous  one,  tending  to  make  sin  appear  more 
sinful. 

99 


MOORE'S 

LYRICS  OF  FAITH 


"O  sing  unto  the  Lord  a  new 
song;  for  he  hath  done  marvelous 
things"  — Ps.  xcviji.  i 


XI 

Thomas  Moore,  the  Irish  Roman  Catholic, 
"the  Httle  perfumed  Adonis,"  who  wrote  verse 
which  Jeffreys,  of  the  Edinburgh  Reviezv,  pro- 
nounced "Hcentious,"  who  challenged  Jeffreys 
and  Byron  to  fight  duels,  and  who  satirized 
President  Jefferson  because  he  failed  to  give  the 
little  poet  the  attention  he  claimed,  nevertheless 
wrote  some  sacred  lyrics  so  strong  with  thought, 
so  warm  with  spiritual  life,  and  so  rich  in  melody 
that  we  sing  some  of  them  yet  in  all  of  our 
churches.  Moore  might  be  named  "The  Lyrist 
of  the  English  Tongue."  He  wrote  national 
lyrics,  love  lyrics,  and  drinking  songs — he  trans- 
lated "The  Odes  of  Anacreon" ;  no  poet  was  ever 
more  truly  a  singer;  no  singer  ever  sang  more 
sweetly.  This  singer,  who  often  sang  so  wan- 
tonly, sang  also  very  truly  and  sweetly  of  faith  in 
God.  How  could  this  be?  The  true  poet  is  the 
historian  of  the  human  heart,  recording  and  in- 
terpreting its  feelings ;  as  Bailey,  in  his  "Festus," 
says : 

Poets  are  all  who  love,  who  feel  great  truths, 
And  tell  them;  and  the  truth  of  truths  is  love. 

In  a  very  essential  sense,  poets  are  inspired. 
There  must  be  an  inspiration  of  great  thought- 
103 


The  Christ  of  Our  Poets 

feeling,  or  there  can  be  no  real  poetry.  The  au- 
thor of  "Festus"  says  again : 

Poetry  is  itself  a  thing  of  God; 

He  made  his  prophets  poets,  and  the  more 

We  feel  of  poesie  do  we  become 

Like  God. 

And  Browning  confirms  the  utterance : 

God  is  the  perfect  poet 
Who  in  creation  acts  his  own  conceptions. 

All  of  this  means  that  God,  v/ho  sometimes 
compels  the  wrath  of  man  to  praise  him,  uses  the 
true  poet  as  the  interpreter  of  human  hearts,  the 
mouthpiece  of  great  truths,  and  the  inspirer  of 
noble  aspirations.  He  sings  because  he  is  in- 
spired to  sing,  and  sometimes  his  song  leads 
others  to  heights  himself  has  never  reached. 
This,  evidently,  is  true  of  the  gifted  Irish  poet, 
Thomas  Moore.     He  sings  beautifully  of  God : 

Thou  art,  O  God,  the  Hfe  and  light 
Of  all  this  wondrous  world  we  see; 

Its  glow  by  day,  its  smile  by  night. 
Are  but  reflections  caught  from  thee: 

Where'er  we  turn  thy  glories  shine. 

And  all  things  fair  and  bright  are  thine. 

He  thought  of  God,  however,  more  as  a  great 
victorious  Warrior  and  Conqueror  than  as  a 
Father : 

Sound  the  loud  timbrel  o'er  Egypt's  dark  sea! 
Jehovah  has  triumphed — his  people  are  free. 


Moore's  Lyrics  of  Faith 


Praise  to  the  Conqueror,  praise  to  the  Lord, 
His  word  was  our  arrow,  his  breath  was  our 
sword. 

He  seems  to  long  for  a  God  who  is  gentle  and 
fatherly,  and  prays  that  God  will  be  gentle  with 
him : 

Come  not,  O  Lord,  in  the  dread  robe  of  splendor 
Thou  worcst  on  the  Mount,  in  the  day  of  thine  ire! 

Come  veiled  in  those  shadows,  deep,  awful,  but  tender. 
Which  mercy  flings  over  thy  features  of  fire! 

So,  when  the  dread  clouds  of  anger  infold  thee, 
From  us,  in  thy  mercy,  the  dark  side  remove; 

While  shrouded  in  terrors  the  guilty  behold  thee, 
Oh,  turn  upon  us  the  mild  light  of  thy  love! 

His  thought  runs  to  the  sterner  notion  of  God 
while  pleading  for  the  tenderer.  Of  his  thirty- 
two  lyrics  classified  as  sacred  songs,  at  least  five 
are  devoted  to  this  notion  of  God.  It  is  but  the 
natural  outcome  of  the  semi-mediceval  Romanism 
under  whose  shadows  he  was  bom  and  reared. 
A  religion  which  gives  to  the  Christ  hardly  more 
consideration  and  worship  than  to  ^Mary,  and 
whose  theology  has  in  it  nearly  as  much  Greek 
philosophy  and  paganism  as  New  Testament 
teaching,  could  hardly  be  expected  to  yield  any 
notion  of  God  other  than  this  stern,  cold  semi- 
pagan  conception  which  pervades  the  sacred  lyr- 
ics of  Tom  Moore. 


The  Christ  of  Our  Poets 

All  of  this  does  not  mean  tliat  in  his  thought 
religion  was  comfortless ;  by  no  means.     He  sang 
that  lovely  hymn  so  popular  wherever  the  Eng- 
lish tongue  is  spoken.     It  is  in  all  of  our  hymnals ; 
we  all  sing  it,  but  not  just  as  he  wrote  it.     He 
wTote  it  thus : 
Come,  ye  disconsolate,  where'er  you  languish; 
Come,  at  the  shrine  of  God  fervently  kneel; 
Here  bring  your  wounded  hearts,  here  tell  your  an- 
guish— 
Earth  has  no  sorrow  that  Heaven  cannot  heal. 

Joy  of  the  desolate,  light  of  the  straying, 

Hope,  when  all  others  die,  fadeless  and  pure, 

Here  speaks  the  Comforter,  in  God's  name,  saying, 
"Earth  has  no  sorrow  that  Heaven  cannot  cure." 

Go,  ask  the  infidel  what  boon  he  brings  us. 
What  charm  for  aching  hearts  he  can  reveal; 

Sweet  as  the  heavenly  promise  Hope  sings  us — 
"Earth  has  no  sorrow  that  God  cannot  heal." 

These  stanzas  are  very  beautiful,  very  tender, 
very  true  as  an  expression  of  the  faith  and  hope 
of  hearts  born  of  God.  Yet  if  Whittier  or  Ten- 
nyson or  Browning  had  written  them,  the  last 
line  of  each  stanza  would  have  read  somewhat 
like  this: 

Earth  has  no  sorrow  that  Christ  cannot  cure. 

Of  the  thirty-two  sacred  songs,  but  one  seems 
to  recognize  the  Christ  at  all,  and  in  this  he  is  not 
named;  but  the  conception  is  so  tender  and  so 
io6 


Moore's  Lyrics  of  Faith 

true  to  the  Christ  idea  that  we  inadvertently  think 
of  the  "Thou"  and  the  "Thee"  of  the  song  as 
Christ;  and  yet  Moore  places  before  it  as  a  text 
Psalm  cxlvii.  3,  instead  of  something  from  the 
words  of  the  Christ.  The  song,  however,  is  in- 
tensely beautiful,  possibly  the  best  thing  Moore 
ever  wrote,  and  rarely  has  it  been  excelled  by  any 
poet : 

O  Thou  who  driest  the  mourner's  tear, 
How  dark  this  world  would  be, 

If,  when  deceived  and  wounded  here. 
We  could  not  fly  to  Thee! 

The  friends  who  in  our  sunshine  live. 

When  winter  comes  are  flown; 
And  he  who  has  but  tears  to  give, 

Must  weep  those  tears  alone. 

But  Thou  wilt  heal  that  broken  heart, 
Which,  like  the  plants  that  throw 

Their  fragrance  from  the  wounded  part. 
Breathes  sweetness  out  of  woe. 

When  joy  no  longer  soothes  or  cheers. 

And  e'en  the  hope  that  threw 
A  moment's  sparkle  o'er  our  tears 

Is  dimmed  and  vanished  too. 

Oh!  who  could  bear  life's  stormy  doom. 

Did  not  thy  wing  of  love 
Come  brightly  wafting  through  the  gloom 

Our  peace-branch  from  above? 

Then  sorrow,  touched  by  Thee,  grows  bright 
With  more  than  rapture's  ray, 

107 


The  Christ  of  Otir  Poets 

As  darkness  shows  us  worlds  of  light 
We  never  saw  by  day. 

Like  all  whose  faith  is  weak  and  whose  visions 
of  religion's  realities  are  dim,  his  religion  was 
more  a  matter  of  the  future  tense  than  of  the 
present.  He  uses  the  word  "Comforter"  in 
"Come,  ye  disconsolate" ;  but  there  is  no  reason 
to  believe  that  he  intended  to  allude  most  remote- 
ly to  the  Holy  Ghost,  so  named  by  our  Lord  in 
John  xiv.  1 6,  26.  He  evidently  never  dreamed 
of  the  "Witness  of  the  Spirit,"  nor  of  the  "Guid- 
ance of  the  Holy  Ghost,"  as  taught  by  the  evan- 
gelical Churches  of  to-day.  With  little  or  no 
conception  of  a  present-tense  salvation,  a  heaven- 
on-earth  religion,  he  naturally  turned  to  the  fu- 
ture, and  the  far-off  future ;  he  sang  sweetly  and 
rapturously  of  heaven : 

This  world  is  all  a  fleeting  show 

For  man's  illusion  given; 
The  smiles  of  joy,  the  tears  of  woe 
Deceitful  shine,  deceitful  Aoav — 

There's  nothing  true  but  Heaven. 

Taken  in  its  bald  literalness,  as  a  matter  of 
course,  this  stanza  is  utterly  false.  This  world 
is  not  a  fleeting  show,  nor  was  it  given  for  man's 
illusion.  Smiles  and  tears  are  not  all  deceitful, 
and  there  are  other  things  than  heaven  that  are 
true.  We  must  not  take  Moore's  words  here 
too  literally ;  but  making  due  allowance  for  poet- 
loS 


Moore's  Lyrics  oj  Faith 

ical  hyperbole,  we  get  a  beautiful  truth  strongly 
and  beautifully  told.  The  next  stanza  is  a  little 
less  extreme: 

And  false  the  light  on  glory's  plume 

As  fading  hues  of  even; 
And  Love,  and  Hope,  and  Beauty's  bloom 
Are  blossoms  gathered  for  the  tomb — 

There's  nothing  bright  but  Heaven. 

Understanding,  as  he  intended  we  should,  that 
the  terms  glov^,  love,  hope,  and  beauty  refer  only 
to  temporal  conditions,  the  stanza  is  as  true  as  it 
is  musical.  The  next  is  utterly  unobjectionable; 
its  sense  is  plain,  its  statement  strong  and  true, 
its  spirit  the  best : 

Poor  wanderers  of  a  stormy  day, 

From  wave  to  wave  we  are  driven; 
And  fancy's  flash  and  reason's  ray 
Serve  but  to  light  the  troubled  way — 
There's  nothing  calm  but  Heaven. 

He  sang  a  yet  truer,  sweeter  thought  of  heav- 
en: 
Weep  not  for  those  whom  the  veil  of  the  tomb 

In  life's  happy  morning  hath  hid  from  our  eyes, 
Ere  sin  threw  a  blight  o'er  the  spirit's  young  bloom, 

Or  earth  had  profaned  what  was  born  for  the  skies. 

Death  chill'd  the  fair  fountain,  ere  sorrow  had  stain'd  it, 

'Twas  frozen  in  all  the  pure  light  of  its  course, 
And  but  sleeps,  till  the  sunshine  of  heaven  has  un- 
chain'd  it, 
To  water  that  Eden,  where  first  was  its  source. 
109 


The  Christ  of  Our  Poets 


Weep  not  for  her — in  her  springtime  she  flew 

To  that  land  where  the  wings  of  the  soul  are  un- 
furled; 

And  now,  like  a  star  beyond  evening's  cold  dew, 
Looks  radiantly  down  on  the  tears  of  the  world. 

As  shown  in  another  chapter,  Moore's  thought 
of  sin  was  true  and  strongly  expressed;  his  no- 
tion of  hohness  was  also  true,  and  his  ideal  very 
high: 

The  bird,  let  loose  in  eastern  skies, 

When  hastening  fondly  home, 
Ne'er  stoops  to  earth  her  wing,  nor  flies 
Where  idle  warblers  roam. 


So  grant  me,  God,  from  every  care 
■  And  stain  of  passion  free, 

Aloft  through  Virtue's  purer  air 
To  hold  my  course  to  thee! 

No  sin  to  cloud — no  lure  to  stay 
My  soul,  as  home  she  springs — 

Thy  sunshine  on  her  joyful  way, 
Thy  freedom  in  her  wings. 

What  poet  has  sung  a  nobler  aspiration   in 
sweeter  phrasing  than  the  following  ? 

As  down  in  the  sunless  retreats  of  the  ocean 
Sweet  flowers  are  springing  no  mortal  can  see, 

So,  deep  in  my  soul  the  still  prayer  of  devotion, 
Unheard  by  the  world,  rises  silent  to  Thee. 


no 


Moore's  Lyrics  of  Paith 

As  still  to  the  star  of  its  worship,  though  clouded. 
The  needle  points  faithfully  o'er  the  dim  sea, 

So,  dark  as  I  roam,  in  this  wintry  world  shrouded, 
The  hope  of  my  spirit  turns  trembling  to  Thee. 

What  singer  has  sung  a  truer  aspiration  than 
this? 

Oh,  teach  me  to  !ove  Thee,  to  feel  that  Thou  art. 
Till,  filled  with  the  one  sacred  image,  my  heart 

Shall  all  other  passions  disown — 
Like  some  pure  temple  that  shines  apart 

Reserved  for  Thy  worship  alone! 

The  following  has  an  evangehcal  air  about  it 
that  we  can  hardly  look  for  in  a  Roman  Catholic, 
least  of  all  in  one  so  very  worldly  as  Moore  is  re- 
puted to  have  been : 

Since  first  Thy  word  awaked  my  heart, 

Like  new  life  dawning  o'er  me. 
Whene'er  I  turn  mine  eyes,  Thou  art 

All  light  and  love  before  me. 
Naught  else  I  feel,  or  hear  or  see — 

All  bonds  of  earth  I  sever — 
Thee,  O  God,  and  only  Thee, 

I  live  for  now  and  ever. 

To  sum  up  the  whole  of  this  study  and  put  its 
result  into  one  sentence,  we  would  say:  Moore's 
thoughts  of  sin  and  holiness  were  in  the  main  true, 
and  his  dreams  of  heaven  were  beautiful  and  in- 
spiring; but  his  conceptions  of  God  were  gro- 
tesquely distorted,  and  he  knew  almost  nothing 
of  the  Christ. 

Ill 


WHITTIER'S 
CREED 


"Let  not  your  heart  be  trovbled: 
ye  believe  in  God.  believe  also  in 
me"  —John  xiv.  i 


XII 

Everybody  knows  that  Whittier  was  a  Quak- 
er. While  the  Quakers  do  not  accept  the  harsh- 
er tenets  of  Calvinism,  yet,  like  many  others  who 
are  not  really  Calvinists,  they  stress  the  sover- 
eignty of  God  to  such  an  extent  that  his  father- 
hood and  his  fatherly  love  and  tenderness  are  al- 
most forgotten.  Whittier's  protest  against  this 
view  is  strong  and  beautiful,  yet  tender  and 
sweet : 

O  friends!  with  whom  my  feet  have  trod 

The  quiet  aisles  of  prayer, 
Glad  witness  to  your  zeal  for  God 

And  love  of  man  I  bear. 


But  still  my  human  hands  are  weak 

To  hold  your  iron  creeds: 
Against  the  words  ye  bid  me  speak 

My  heart  within  me  pleads. 

I  walk  with  bare  hushed  feet  the  ground 
Ye  tread  with  boldness  shod; 

I  dare  not  fix  with  mete  and  bound 
The  love  and  power  of  God. 

Ye  praise  his  justice;  even  such 

His  pitying  love  I  deem: 
Ye  seek  a  king;  I  fain  would  touch 

The  robe  that  hath  no  seam. 


»'5 


The  Christ  of  Our  Poets 

He  does  not  ignore  the  fact  of  sin  and  the  hate- 
fulness  of  it;  and  he  would  not  be  misunder- 
stood— he  speaks  clearly  and  honestly : 

More  than  your  schoolmen  teach,  within 

Myself,  alas!  I  know: 
Too  dark  ye  cannot  paint  the  sin, 

Too  small  the  merit  show. 

I  bow  my  forehead  to  the  dust, 

I  veil  mine  eyes  for  shame, 
And  urge,  in  trembling  self-distrust, 

A  prayer  without  a  claim. 

I  see  the  wrong  that  round  me  lies, 

I  feel  the  guilt  within; 
I  hear,  with  groan  and  travail  cries, 

The  world  confess  its  sin. 

No  stronger,  clearer,  truer  statement  of  the 
fact  and  tendency  and  result  of  sin  was  ever  ut- 
tered. The  meaning  of  sin,  its  deep,  dark  guilt, 
its  awful  deservings,  its  revolting  nature,  arc 
all  fully  and  honestly  recognized.  Yet  the  "Eter- 
nal Goodness"  sheds  a  light  over  the  whole  dark 
picture ;  the  star  of  hope  burns  brightly : 

Yet  in  the  maddening  maze  of  things, 
And  tossed  by  storm  and  flood. 

To  one  fixed  stake  my  spirit  clings: 
/  know  that  God  is  good. 

Then  he  sings  an  argument  sweet  and  musical 
as  it  is  strong  and  logical : 
ii6 


Whilticr's  Creed 

The  wrong  that  pains  my  soul  below 

I  dare  not  throne  above: 
I  know  not  of  his  hate — I  know 

His  goodness  and  his  love. 

He  sings  his  faith  in  the  providence  of  a  God 
so  tender  in  love,  so  positive  in  goodness : 

I  know  not  what  the  future  hath 

Of  marvel  or  surprise, 
Assured  alone  that  life  and  death 

His  mercy  underlies. 


And  so  beside  the  Silent  Sea 

I  wait  the  muffled  oar; 
No  harm  from  him  can  come  to  me 

On  ocean  or  on  shore. 

I  know  not  where  his  islands  lift 

Their  fronded  palms  in  air; 
I  only  know  I  cannot  drift 

Beyond  his  love  and  care. 

This  lyric  of  twenty-two  quatrains  is  entitled 
"The  Eternal  Goodness,"  and  is  devoted  to  tliis 
protest  against  the  false  and  this  presentation  of 
the  true  conception  of  God.  Other  of  his  poems 
speak  the  same  protest  and  presentation.  In 
"Snow-Bound"  he  says: 

All  hearts  confess  the  saints  elect 
Who,  twain  in  faith,  in  love  agree, 

And  melt  not  in  an  acid  sect 
The  Christian  pearl  of  charity. 

117 


The  Christ  of  Our  Poets 

Thus  he  premises  universal  acceptance  of  the 
truth  that  a  God  of  love  will  count  as  "elect"  ail 
v^ho  love.  In  "The  Legend  of  St.  Mark,"  he 
sings  the  same  beautiful  thought  of  God's  love 
for  us  children  of  earth : 

Unheard  no  burdened  heart's  appeal 
Moans  up  to  God's  inclining  ear; 

Unheeded  by  his  tender  eye, 
Falls  to  the  earth  no  sufferer's  tear. 

While  the  love  and  tenderness  of  God  are  so 
strongly  stressed,  Whittier  did  not  lean  in  the 
least  toward  that  namby-pamby  sentim.entality 
which  would  argue  that  God  is  too  good  to  per- 
mit a  soul  to  be  lost.  In  "The  Answer,"  he 
states  the  truth  of  human  responsibility  very 
strongly  and  clearly : 

Though  God  be  good  and  free  be  heaven, 
No  force  divine  can  love  compel; 

And,  though  the  song  of  sins  forgiven 
May  sound  through  lowest  hell, 

The  sweet  persuasion  of  his  voice 
Respects  thy  sanctity  of  will — 

He  giveth  day:  thou  hast  thy  choice 
To  walk  in  darkness  still. 


No  word  of  doom  may  shut  thee  out. 
No  wind  of  wrath  may  downward  whirl. 

No  swords  of  fire  keep  watch  about 
The  open  gates  of  pearl; 
ii8 


Whit  tier's  Creed 

A  tenderer  light  than  moon  or  sun, 
Than  song  of  earth  a  sweeter  hymn, 

May  shine  and  sound  forever  on, 
And  thou  be  deaf  and  dim. 

Forever  round  the  Mercy  seat 
The  guiding  hghts  of  love  shall  burn; 

But  what  if,  habit-bound,  thy  feet 
Should  lack  the  will  to  turn? 

What  if  thine  eye  refuse  to  see. 

Thine  ear  of  heaven's  free  welcome  fail, 

And  thou  a  willing  captive  be, 
Thyself  thy  own  dark  jail? 

Could  any  statement  be  clearer?  could  any  ar- 
gument be  stronger?  could  thought  of  God  be 
sweeter?  The  two  closing  quatrains  are  a  sol- 
emn, awful  warning,  still  saturated  with  his  love- 
ly conception  of  God : 

O  doom  beyond  the  saddest  guess, 
As  the  long  years  of  God  unroll 

To  make  thy  dreary  selfishness 
The  prison  of  a  soul! 

To  doubt  the  love  that  fain  would  break 
The  fetters  from  thy  self -bound  limb; 

And  dream  that  God  can  thee  forsake 
As  thou  forsakest  him! 

This  high  and  intensely  true  and  beautiful  con- 
ception of  God  comes  to  no  man  except  as  a  rev- 
elation through  Jesus  Christ ;  hence  it  is  to  be  ex- 
pected that  Whittier's  notion  of  the  Christ  would 
119 


The  Christ  of  Our  Poets 

be  equally  elevated  and  lovely.  This  he  sings  in 
"Our  Master,"  which  Dr.  Philip  Schaff  declared 
to  be  "the  finest  Christian  ode  produced  in  Amer- 
ica." Has  a  finer  one  been  produced  in  England 
or  Germany  or  France  or  Italy?  Its  opening 
stanza  is  specially  lofty  in  thought  and  feeling : 

Immortal  Love,  forever  full, 

Forever  flowing  free, 
Forever  shared,  forever  whole, 

A  never-ebbing  sea ! 

Here  and  there  through  the  lyric  are  scattered 
stanzas  of  like  wing — e.  g.: 

O  Lord  and  Master  of  us  all! 

Whate'er  our  name  or  sign, 
We  own  thy  sway,  we  hear  thy  call, 

We  test  our  lives  by  thine! 

The  following  are  still  loftier,  stronger-winged, 
and  richer: 

O  Love!  O  Life!  Our  faith  and  sight 

Thy  presence  maketh  one: 
As  through  transfigured  clouds  of  white 

We  trace  the  noonday  sun. 

So  to  our  mortal  eyes  subdued, 

Flesh-veiled  but  not  concealed. 
We  know  in  thee  the  fatherhood 

And  heart  of  God  revealed. 

Christ  was  vastly  more  in  Whittier's  thought 
than  a  magnificent  historic  personage  claiming 
the  admiration  of  a  wondering  world.     He  was, 
120 


Whttticr^s  Ci'ced 

as  he  should  be  in  the  thought  of  every  one  of  us, 
a  real  personal  Saviour: 

Alone,  O  Love  ineffable! 

Thy  saving  name  is  given: 
To  turn  aside  from  thee  is  hell, 

To  walk  with  thee  is  heaven! 

Not  only  did  he  think  of  Christ  as  a  Saviour, 
but  as  a  real  living  personality  with  whom  he 
could  come  into  conscious  touch : 

No  fable  old,  nor  mystic  lore, 
No  dream  of  bards  and  seers, 

No  dead  fact  stranded  on  the  shore 
Of  the  oblivious  years; 

But  warm,  sweet,  tender,  even  yet 

A  present  help  is  he; 
And  faith  has  still  its  Olivet, 

And  love  its  Galilee. 

The  healing  of  his  seamless  dress 

Is  by  our  beds  of  pain; 
We  touch  him  in  life's  throng  and  press. 

And  we  are  whole  again. 

Whittier  was  very  practical  in  his  religion,  anil 
recognized  that  our  relation  to  such  a  Christ  in- 
volved very  practical  and  positively  Christlike 
service : 

Our  Friend,  our  Brother,  and  our  Lord, 

What  may  thy  service  be? 
Nor  name,  nor  form,  nor  ritual  word. 

But  simply  following  thee. 

121 


The  Christ  of  Our  Poets 

We  bring  no  ghastly  holocaust, 
We  pile  no  graven  stone; 

He  serves  thee  best  who  lovest  most 
His  brothers  and  thine  own. 

Thy  litanies,  sweet  offices 

Of  love  and  gratitude; 
Thy  sacramental  liturgies 

The  joy  of  doing  good. 


The  heart  must  ring  thy  Christmas  bells, 

Thy  inward  altars  raise; 
Its  faith  and  hope  thy  canticles, 

And  its  obedience  praise. 

Whittier  was  very  fond  of  this  view  of  service 
to  God  and  the  Christ.  In  his  poem  entitled 
"Worship,"  he  says : 

O  brother  man!  fold  to  thy  heart  thy  brother; 

Where  pity  dwells  the  peace  of  God  is  there; 
To  worship  rightly  is  to  love  each  other, 

Each  smile  a  hymn,  each  kindly  deed  a  prayer. 

In  "]\Tary  Garvin"  he  sings : 

Christ's  love  rebukes  no  home  love, 

Breaks  no  tie  of  kin  apart; 
Better  heresy  of  doctrine 

Than  heresy  of  heart. 

Whittier  did  not  at  all  believe  in  Calvinism, 
yet  he  taught  a  divine  sovereignty,  which  respect- 
ing our  "sanctity  of  will"  claimed  nevertheless  a 
perfect  submission  to  the  divine — claimed,  but  did 

122 


Whitticr* s  Creed 

not  compel  it.     He  sang  his  own  heart  and  creed 
Avhen  he  wrote : 

Strike,  Thou  the  Master,  we  Thy  keys 
The  anthem  of  the  destinies! 
The  minor  of  thy  loftier  strain, 
Our  hearts  shall  breathe,  the  old  refrain: 
Thy  will  be  done! 

That  such  faith  in  God  and  the  Christ  should 
have  filled  Whittier's  life  with  joyous  hopeful- 
ness needs  not  to  be  proved.  It  could  have  no 
other  effect.  While  his  muse  did  not  soar  so 
high  as  did  the  muse  of  Tennyson,  yet  his  strong, 
pure  faith,  his  simple-heartedness,  his  transparent 
purity  of  life  and  thought  gave  to  his  simple  ut- 
terances a  strength  and  beauty  that  very  few 
singers  have  ever  reached. 
123 


THE  RELIGION 
OF  LONGFELLOW 


"  God  anointed  Jesus  of  Naza- 
reth with  the  Holy  Ghost  and  with 
power;  who  went  about  doing  good" 
—Acts  x,  jS 


Kill 

Years  ago  some  one  in  England  declared  that 
Longfellow  had  not  only  written  no  line  which 
dying  he  would  wish  to  blot,  but  not  one  which 
living  he  had  not  a  right  to  be  proud  of.  The 
son  of  a  noble  father  and  pious  mother,  and  sur- 
rounded from  childhood  by  conditions  favorable 
to  the  highest  development  of  manhood,  Long- 
fell  ov/  grew  up  from  a  pure,  good  boy  to  a  noble 
man  with  a  white  life,  and,  like  Whittier,  pre- 
eminently a  Christian.  His  religious  notions 
were,  like  his  life,  elevated,  refined,  correct,  and 
utterly  free  from  eccentricities.  There  seems  to 
liave  been  no  purpose  with  him,  save  in  his 
"Christus,"  to  write  what  may  be  called  "sacred 
poetry,"  though  he  named  at  least  three  of  his 
poems  "hymns";  yet  the  Christ  spirit,  which 
molded  the  beautiful  life  of  the  man,  pervaded 
his  verse  throughout,  giving  it  spirit  and  bright- 
ness. This  Christ  spirit  sometimes  found  very 
clear,  outspoken  utterance,  beautiful  and  inspir- 
ing. 

In  his  "Hymn"  for  his  brother's  ordination,  lie 
sings  thus  of  the  Christ : 

Christ  to  the  young  man  said:  "Yet  one  thing 
more; 
If  thou  wouldst  perfect  be, 
Sell  all  thou  hast  and  give  it  to  the  poor. 
And  come  and  follow  me!" 
127 


T'he  Christ  cf  Our  Pods 

Within  this  temple  Christ  again,  unseen, 

Those  sacred  words  hath  said, 
And  his  invisible  hands  to-day  have  been 

Laid  on  a  young  man's  head. 

And  evermore  beside  him  on  his  vi^ay 

The  unseen  Christ  shall  move, 
That  he  may  lean  upon  his  arm  and  say, 

"Dost  Thou,  dear  Lord,  approve?" 

O  holy  trust!     O  endless  sense  of  restl 

Like  the  beloved  John 
To  lay  his  head  upon  the  Saviour's  breast. 

And  thus  to  journey  on! 

The  conception  of  a  personal,  living  Christ  in 
conscious  touch  with  the  soul  that  trusts,  sung  in 
these  lines,  is  as  refreshing  as  it  is  true,  as  beauti- 
ful as  it  is  inspiriting. 

In  his  "Divine  Tragedy,"  which  as  a  work  of 
art  was  not  a  great  success,  he  nevertheless  sings 
sweetly  and  truly  the  story  of  Jesus.  In  "Evan- 
geline" he  pictures  exquisitely  a  Christly  human 
life  that  had  its  seeking  after  the  lost,  its  service 
of  helpfulness,  its  years  of  loneliness,  and  at  last 
its  Gethsemane  of  utter  disappointment  and  won- 
derful resignation.  In  these  especially  the  Christ 
spirit  is  pervasive,  felt  rather  than  seen,  intimated 
oftener  than  spoken. 

Longfellow  was  not  inclined  to  make  public 

the  sacred  secrets  of  his  soul ;  but  there  is  told  in 

"The  Bridge"  an  experience  which  Methodists 

especially  understand  and  appreciate: 
128 


The  Religion  of  Longfellow 

How  often,  oh  how  often, 

I  had  wished  that  the  ebbing  tide 

Would  bear  me  away  on  its  bosom 
O'er  the  ocean  wild  and  wide! 

For  my  heart  was  hot  and  restless, 
And  my  life  was  full  of  care, 

And  the  burden  laid  upon  me 
Seemed  greater  than  I  could  bear. 

But  now  it  Juis  fallen  from  me, 

It  is  buried  in  the  sea; 
And  only  the  sorrow  of  others 

Throws  its  shadow  over  me. 

It  is  only  the  religion  of  Jesus  that  can  roll  off 
burdens  too  heavy  for  human  hearts ;  and  it  is 
only  when  the  life  has  been  transfigured  to  the 
Christly  that  it  is  shadowed  alone  by  "the  sorrow 
of  others."  The  doctrine  is  re-sung  in  "The  Be- 
leagured  City" : 

Down  the  broad  Vale  of  Tears  afar 

The  spectral  camp  is  fled; 
Faith  shineth  as  a  morning  star, 

Our  ghastly  fears  are  dead. 

His  faith  in  the  Christ-taught  doctrine  of  the 
ministry  of  sorrow  is  beautifully  told  in  "Resig- 
nation" : 

These  severe  afflictions 
Not  from  the  ground  arise, 
But  oftentimes  celestial  benedictions 
Assume  this  dark  disguise. 

9  129 


The  Chi'lst  of  Our  Poets 

Wc  see  but  dimly  through  the  mists  and  vapors; 

Amid  these  earthly  damps 
What  seem  to  us  sad,  funereal  tapers 

May  be  heaven's  distant  lamps. 

In  the  same  sweet  lyric  he  sings  his  strong, 
clear-eyed  belief  in  immortality: 

There  is  no  death !    What  seems  so  is  transition ; 

This  life  of  mortal  breath 
Is  but  a  suburb  of  the  life  Elysian, 

Whose  portal  we  call  Death. 

She  is  not  dead — the  child  of  our  affection — 

But  gone  unto  that  school 
Where  she  no  longer  needs  our  poor  protection, 

And  Christ  himself  doth  rule. 

In  "God's  Acre"  he  sings  this  faith  linked  with 
his  belief  in  the  resurrection : 

I  like  that  ancient  Saxon  phrase,  which  calls 
The  burial  ground  God's  Acre !     It  is  just ; 

It  consecrates  each  grave  within  its  walls, 
And  breathes  a  benison  o'er  the  sleeping  dust. 

Into  its  furrows  shall  we  all  be  cast, 
In  the  sure  faith  that  we  shall  rise  again 

At  the  great  harvest,  when  the  archangel's  blast 
Shall  winnow,  like  a  fan,  the  chaflf  and  grain. 

Then  shall  the  good  stand  in  immortal  bloom, 

In  the  fair  gardens  of  that  second  birth; 
And  each  bright  blossom  mingle  its  perfume 
With  that  of  flowers  which  never  bloomed  on 
earth. 

130 


The  Religion  of  Longfellotv 

His  conception  of  the  Christian  Hfe  is  told  in 
'The  Legend  Beautiful'': 

In  his  chamber  all  alone, 
Kneeling  on  the  floor  of  stone, 
Prayed  the  Monk — 


Suddenly,  as  if  it  lightened, 

An  unwonted  splendor  brightened^ — 

And  he  saw  the  Blessed  Vision 
Of  our  Lord,  with  light  Elysian 
Like  a  vesture  wrapt  about  him. 

Naturally  the  Monk  exulted  in  the  Vision,  won- 
dering how  it  was  that  such  superlative  honor 
had  come  to  him. 

Then  amid  his  exaltation, 
Loud  the  convent  bell 


Rang  through  court  and  corridor 
With  persistent  iteration 
He  had  never  heard  before. 
It  was  now  the  appointed  hour 
When  alike  in  shine  or  shower 

To  the  convent  portals  came 
All  the  blind  and  halt  and  lame, 
All  the  beggars  of  the  street, 
For  their  daily  dole  of  food 
Dealt  them  by  the  brotherhood; 
And  their  almoner  was  he 
Who  upon  his  bended  knee 
•        ••••••• 

i3» 


The  Christ  of  Our  Pods 

Saw  the  Vision  and  the  Splendor. 

Whether  to  go  and  deal  bread  to  the  poor  rab- 
ble, or  to  stay  with  the  delightful  Vision,  was  a 
perplexing  problem  for  the  Monk.  He  hesitated. 
If  he  went, 

Would  the  Vision  there  remain? 
Would  the  Vision  come  again? 

Conscience  whispered : 

"Do  thy  duty ;  that  is  best ; 
Leave  unto  thy  Lord  the  rest !" 

He  went,  leaving  the  Splendor,  and  fed  the 
hungry  at  the  convent  gate.  When  he  returned 
to  his  cell  he  found  that 

Through  the  long  hour  intervening 
It  had  waited  his  return, 
And  he  felt  his  bosom  burn, 
Comprehending  all  the  meaning, 
When  the  Blessed  Vision  said, 
"Hadst  thou  stayed,  I  must  have  fled!" 

Like  all  real  Christians,  Longfellow  was  very 
optimistic.  He  believed  in  God  profoundly,  and 
in  providence,  in  the  Christ  sweetly,  and  in  heav- 
en; and  he  believed  in  m.an,  and  in  the  large 
possibilities  of  humanity.  His  'Tsalni  of  Life," 
too  well  aiid  v/idely  known  to  require  quoting,  is 
abundant  and  strong  proof  of  his  faith  in  hu- 
manity. In  "The  Builders"  he  sings  the  same 
faith : 

132 


The  Religion  of  Longfellow 

All  are  architects  of  Fate, 

Working  in  these  walls  of  Time; 

Some  with  massive  deeds  and  great, 
Some  with  ornaments  of  rhyme. 

Nothing  useless  is,  or  low; 

Each  thing  in  its  place  is  best; 
And  what  seems  but  idle  show 

Strengthens  and  supports  the  rest. 

His  finest  expression  of  his  optimism  is  possi- 
bly a  stanza  in  "The  Bells  of  San  Bias,"  which 
was  the  last  poem  that  lie  wrote : 

O  Bells  of  San  Bias,  in  vain 
Ye  call  back  the  Past  again! 

The  Past  is  deaf  to  our  prayer; 
Out  of  the  shadows  of  night 
The  world  rolls  into  light; 

It  is  daybreak  everywhere. 

In  his  "Nuremberg"  he  sang: 
The  nobility  of  labor — the  long  pedigree  of  toil; 
and  of  Albrecht  Dtirer : 

Emigrovit  is  the  inscription  on  the  tombstone  where  he 

lies; 
Dead   he   is    not — but   departed — for   the   artist   never 

dies. 

In  "The  Norman  Baron"  he  re-sings  his  faith 
in  the  Christ: 

Born  and  cradled  in  a  manger! 
King,  like  David,  priest,  like  Aaron, 
Christ  is  born  to  set  us  free! 


00 


The  Christ  of  Our  Poets 

Thus  throughout  his  lyrics  and  epics  and  dra- 
mas, these  sparkhng  gems  gleam  with  the  fire  of 
the  Christ  spirit  which  pervades  his  work,  as  it 
molded  the  man  and  guided  his  life. 
134 


HOLLAND'S 

*' BITTER-SWEET' 


"  Whom  the  Lord  lovctk  he  chas- 
teneth,  and  scourgeth  every  son 
whom  he  receivcth  "         — Heb.  xH.  6 


XIV 

Dr.  J.  G.  Holland's  finest  work  is  his  "Bit- 
ter-Sweet," a  beautiful  poem,  dramatic  in  form, 
though  evidently  never  intended  for  the  stage, 
whose  theme  is  the  ministry  of  suffering.  The 
scene  is  laid  in  a  New  England  farmhouse;  the 
time  is  "Winter's  wild  birthnight,"  the  eve  of 
Thanksgiving  Day;  the  dramatis personcs  are: 

A  Puritan 
Who  reads  his  Bible  daily,  loves  his  God, 
And  lives  serenely  in  the  faith  of  Christ; 

who  is  a  widower,  for 

His  gentle  wife,  a  dozen  summers  since, 
Passed  from  his  faithful  arms  and  w^ent  to  heaven; 
And  her  best  gift — a  maiden  sweetly  named — 
His  daughter  Ruth; 

and  other  children  who  are  married,  and  grand- 
children : 

John  comes  with  Prudence  and  her  little  girls, 
And  Peter  matched  with  Patience  brings  his 

boys — 
Fair  boys  and  girls  with  good  old  Scripture 

names — 
Joseph,  Rebekah,  Paul,  and  Samuel; 
And  Grace,  young  Ruth's  companion  in  the  house, 
Till  wrested  from  her  last  Thanksgiving  Day, 
By  the  strong  hand  of  Love,  brings  home  her  babe 


The  Christ  of  Our  Poets 

And  the  tall  poet  David,  at  whose  side 
She  went  away.     And  seated  in  the  midst, 
Mary,  a  foster-daughter  of  the  house, 
Of  alien  blood — self-aliened  many  a  year. 

The  plot  of  the  drama  involves  the  arguing  of 
the  question  and  the  illustration  of  the  doctrine ; 
and  the  denouement  presents  an  illustration  of  it 
strong,  thrilling,  and  all-convincing.  In  the  Pre- 
lude the  doctrine  is  very  strongly,  even  startling- 
ly,  stated : 

Evil  is  only  the  slave  of  Good; 
Sorrow,  the  servant  of  Joy; 
And  the  soul  is  mad  that  refuses  food 
From  the  meanest  in  God's  employ. 

The  fountain  of  Joy  is  fed  with  tears. 
And  love  is  lit  by  the  breath  of  sighs 

The  deepest  griefs  and  wildest  fears 
Have  holiest  ministries. 

The  first  quatrain,  as  a  matter  of  course,  must 
not  be  understood  in  its  most  literal,  unmodified 
sense :  let  us  not  forget  that  it  is  poetry.  The  sec- 
ond quatrain  explains  the  first ;  then  follows  a 
beautiful  illustration  of  the  truth: 

Strong  grows  the  oak  in  the  sweeping  storm; 

Safely  the  flower  sleeps  under  the  snow; 
And  the  farmer's  hearth  is  never  warm 

Till  the  cold  wind  starts  to  blow. 

Ruth  is  skeptical,  and  she  honestly  confesses  it : 

I  know 
That  care  has  iron  crowns  for  many  brows; 

'3^ 


HollajuVs  ^'■Btitcr-Swcct''^ 

That  Calvaries  are  everywhere,  whereon 

Virtue  is  crucified,  and  nails  and  spears 

Draw  guiltless  blood;  that  sorrow  sits  and  drinks 

At  sweetest  hearts,  till  all  their  life  is  dry; 

That  gentle  spirits  on  the  rack  of  pain 

Grow  faint  or  fierce,  and  pray  and  curse  by  turns ; 

That  HeU's  temptations,  clad  in  heavenly  guise 

And  armed  with  might,  lie  evermore  in  wait 

Along  life's  path,  giving  assault  to  all, 

Fatal  to  most;  that  Death  stalks  through  the  earth, 

Choosing  his  victims,  sparing  none  at  last; 

That  in  each  shadow  of  a  pleasant  tree 

A  grief  sits  sadly  sobbing  to  its  leaves. 

God  forgive  me!  but  I've  thought 
A  thousand  times  that  if  I  had  his  power, 
Or  he  m.y  love,  we'd  have  a  different  world 
From  this  we  live  in. 

David,  the  poet  and  philosopher,  meets  Ruth's 
skepticism  with  argument  and  illustration.  He 
urges : 

God  seeks  for  virtue,  and  that  it  may  live 
It  must  resist,  and  that  which  it  resists 
Must  live.     Believe  me,  God  has  other  thought 
Than  restoration  of  our  fallen  race 
To  its  primeval  innocence  and  bliss. 

He  argues  with  strong  reason  that  Christ 
Was  slain  that  we  might  be  transformed — 
Not  into  Adam's  sweet  similitude. 
But  the  more  glorious  image  of  Himself, 
A  resolution  of  our  destiny 
As  high  transcending  Eden's  life  and  lot 
As  He  surpasses  Eden's  fallen  lord. 


The  Christ  of  Our  Poets 

Pointing  to  the  cider,  he  sings  a  striking  para- 
ble: 

Hearts  like  apples  are  hard  and  sour 
Til]  crushed  by  Pain's  resistless  power, 
And  yield  their  juices  rich  and  bland 
To  none  but  Sorrow's  heavy  hand. 
The  purest  streams  of  human  love 

Flow  naturally  never, 
But  gush  by  pressure  from  above 
With  God's  hand  on  the  lever. 

Pointing  to  the  beef,  he  sings  another : 

Life  evermore  is  fed  by  death 

In  earth  and  sea  and  sky; 
And  that  a  rose  may  breathe  its  breath 

Something  must  die. 
Earth  is  a  sepulcher  of  flowers 

Whose  vitalizing  mold 
Through   boundless   transmutation   towers 

In  green  and  gold. 

The  milk-haired  heifer's  life  must  pass 

That  it  may  fill  your  own, 
As  passed  the  sweet  life  of  the  grass 

She  fed  upon. 

Pointing  to  the  apples,  he  sang  still  another : 

The  native  orchard's  fairest  trees, 

Wild  springing  on  the  hill 
Bear  no  such  precious  fruits  as  these. 

And  never  will 
Till  ax  and  saw  and  pruning  knife 

Cut  from  them  every  bough. 
And  they  receive  a  gentler  life 

Than  crowns  them  now. 
140 


Holland's  ''Biltcr-Szvcci  " 


Sorrow  must  crop  each  passion  shoot, 

And  Pain  each  lust  infernal, 
Or  human  life  can  bear  no  fruit 

To  life  eternal. 
For  angels  wait  on  Providence, 

And  mark  the  sundered  places. 
To  graft  with  gentlest  instruments 

The  heavenly  graces. 

He  closes  his  argument  with  these  strong  mu- 
sical lines,  as  logical  as  they  are  melodious : 

All  common  good  has  common  price; 

Exceeding  good,  exceeding; 
Christ  bought  the  keys  of  Paradise 

By  cruel  bleeding; 
And  that  every  soul  that  wins  a  place 

Upon  its  hills  of  pleasure 
Must  give  its  all  and  beg  for  grace 

To  fill  the  measure. 

Were  every  hill  a  precious  mine. 

And  golden  all  the  mountains; 
Were  all  the  rivers  fed  with  wine 

By  tireless  fountains; 
Life  would  be  ravished  of  its  zest, 

And  shorn  of  its  ambition, 
And  sink  into  the  dreamless  rest 

Of  inanition. 
Up  the  broad  stairs  that  Value  rears 

Stand  motives  beckoning  earthward 
To  summon  men  to  nobler  spheres, 

And  lead  them  worthward. 

The   plot   involves   a   sad    domestic   problem 
141 


"Ilic  Christ  of  Our  Poets 

which  finds  in  the  denouement  a  solution  sweet 
and  pathetic  that  confirms  the  argument  resist- 
lessly.  The  drama  closes  with  a  death  scene  so 
beautiful  that  one  asks : 

And  this  is  death!     Think  you  that  raptured  soul 
Now  walking  humbly  in  the  golden  streets, 
Bearing  the  precious  burden  of  a  love 
Too  great  for  utterance,  or  with  hushed  heart 
Drinking  the  music  of  the  ransomed  throng, 
Counts  death  an  evil? 

Ruth,  midway  in  the  argument,  saw  the  force 
of  David's  logic  and  was  convinced,  and  con- 
fessed it  very  sweetly : 

Thank  God  for  light! 
These  truths  are  slowly  dawning  on  my  soul — 

Dear  Lord!  what  visions  crowd  before  my  eyes — 

Visions  drawn  forth  from  memory's  mysteries 

By  the  sweet  shining  of  these  holy  lights! 

I  see  a  girl,  once  lightest  in  the  dance. 

And  maddest  with  the  gayety  of  life, 

Grow  pale  and  pulseless,  wasting  day  by  day — 

A  sweet  smile  sits  upon  her  angel  face. 
And  peace,  with  downy  bosom,  nestles  close — 

Closer  still. 
As  on  white  wings  the  outward-going  soul 
Flies  to  a  home  it  never  would  have  sought, 
Had  a  great  evil  failed  to  point  the  way. 
I  see  a  youth  whom  God  has  crowned  with  power 
And  cursed  with  poverty.     With  bravest  heart 
142 


Holland'' s  ^''B liter-Sweet'^ 

He  struggles  with  his  lot,  through  toilsome 

years — 
Kept  to  his  task  by  daily  want  of  bread. 
And  kept  to  virtue  by  his  daily  task — 
Till  gaining  manhood  in  the  manly  strife, 
The  fire  that  fills  him  smitten  from  a  flint, 
The  strength  that  arms  him  wrested  from  a  fiend: 
He  stands,  at  last,  a  master  of  himself. 
And  in  that  grace  a  master  of  his  kind. 

Like  the  hand 
Of  a  strong  angel  on  the  shoulder  laid 
Touching  the  secrets  of  the  spirit's  wings. 
My  heart  grows  brave.     I'm  ready  now  to  work — 
To  work  with  God,  and  suffer  with  his  Christ. 

The  English  language  has  voiced  few  hymns 
truer,  stronger,  and  sweeter  than  the  Thanksgiv- 
ing Hymn  they  sang  that  night,  the  first  stanza 
of  which  runs  thus : 

For  Summer's  bloom  and  Autumn's  blight, 
For  bending  wheat  and  blasting  maize, 

For  health  and  sickness,  Lord  of  light. 
And  Lord  of  darkness,  hear  our  praise! 

H3 


**THE  MARBLE 
PROPHECY" 


" For  toe  wrestle"        — Ern.  vi.  12 

"  O  wretched  man  that  I  am!  who 

shall  deliver  me  from  the  body  of 

this  death?"  — Rom.  vU.  24 


XV 

An  old  Greek  myth,  recited  by  Virgil  in  his 
"^neid,"  tells  of  Laocoon,  an  old  priest,  who, 
while  sacrificing  assisted  by  his  two  sons,  on 
the  sea  beach,  near  Troy,  was  seized,  with  his 
sons,  and  crushed  to  death  by  two  gigantic  sea 
serpents,  which  had  glided  unobserved  from  the 
water.  In  the  Vatican  at  Rome  there  is  a  sculp- 
tured group,  recovered  from  the  ruins  of  the  Pal- 
ace of  Titus,  which  pictures  with  startling  real- 
ness  this  fatal  conflict  of  Laocoon  and  his  sons 
with  tlie  twin  serpents  at  Troy.  It  was  a  favor- 
ite theme  with  Greek  and  Roman  artists  and 
poets.  It  so  vividly  expressed  a  universal  spirit- 
ual experience  that  every  soul  of  humankind 
readily  understood  its  mystic  meaning.  Our 
American  poet.  Dr.  J.  G.  Holland,  when  in  the 
Vatican  Museum,  came  face  to  face  with  this 
Rhodian  group  of  the  Laocoon,  and  was  inspired 
to  sing  what  he  aptly  calls  "The  Marble  Proph- 
ecy" ;  and  thus  he  sang  it : 

Laocoon!  thou  great  embodiment 
Of  human  life  and  human  history! 
Thou  record  of  the  past,  thou  prophecy 
Of  the  sad  future,  thou  majestic  voice, 
Pealing  along  the  ages  from  old  time! 
Thou  wail  of  agonized  humanity! 

^47 


The  Christ  of  Our  Poets 

There  lives  no  thought  in  marble  like  to  thee! 

Thou  hast  no  kindred  in  the  Vatican, 

But  standest  separate  among  the  dreams 

Of  old  mythologies — alone — alone! 

The  beautiful  Apollo  at  thy  side 

Is  but  a  marble  dream:  and  dreams  are  all 

The  gods  and  goddesses  and  fauns  and  fates 

That  populate  these  wondrous  halls;  but  thou, 

Standing  among  them,  liftest  up  thyself 

In  majesty  of  meaning,  till  they  sink 

Far  from  thy  sight,  no  more  significant 

Than  the  poor  toys  of  children:  for  tlion  art 

A  voice  from  out  the  world's  experience, 

Speaking  of  all  the  generations  past 

To  all  the  generations  yet  to  come 

Of  the  long  struggle,  the  sublime  despair, 

The  wild  and  weary  agony  of  man. 

Aye — Adam  and  his  offspring  in  the  toils 
Of  the  twin  serpents.  Sin  and  Suffering, 
Thou  dost  impersonate;  and  as  I  gaze 
Upon  the  tv/ining  monsters  that  infold 
In  unrelaxing,  unrelenting  coils 
Thy  awful  energies,  and  plant  their  fangs 
Deep  in  thy  quivering  flesh,  while  still  thy  might 
In  fierce  convulsion  foils  the  fateful  wrench 
That  would  destroy  thee,  I  am  overwhelmed 
With  a  strange  sympathy  of  kindred  pain, 
And  see  through  gathering  tears  the  tragedy, 
The  curse  and  conflict  of  a  ruined  race. 

This  fact  of  human  history  and  experience, 

which  had  come  moaning  down  more  than  forty 

centuries,  which  had  been  so  vividly  voiced  in 

art  and  poetrv,  which  had  been  written  in  every 

148 


<-^ The  Marble  Prophecy'' 

nation's  annals,  which  had  been  taught  in  phi- 
losophy and  carved  in  marble,  finds  inspired  ex- 
pi-ession  strong  and  simple  in  the  New  Testa- 
ment. Paul,  looking  back  to  the  time  when  he, 
like  Laccoon,  fought  this  fearful  battle,  wrote  to 
the  Romans :  "When  we  were  in  the  flesh" — i.  e., 
when  we  were  unregenerate — "the  sinful  passions 
.  .  .  wrought  in  our  members  to  bring  forth 
fruit  unto  death."  Revoicing  a  famous  dictum 
of  Plato,  he  continues :  "For  that  which  I  do  I 
allow  not:  for  what  I  would  that  I  do  not;  but 
what  I  hate  that  I  do.  ...  I  see  a  law" — i. 
e.,  a  force — "in  my  members,  warring  against  the 
law  of  my  mind  and  bringing  me  into  captivity  to 
the  lav/  of  sin.  .  .  .  O  wretched  man  that  I 
am !  who  shall  deliver  me  from  the  body  of  this 
death?"  To  the  Ephesians  he  wrote:  "We 
wrestle  not  against  flesh  and  blood,  but  against 
principalities,  against  powers,  against  the  world 
rulers  of  this  darkness,  against  the  spiritual  hosts 
of  wickedness."  Paul  could  hardly  have  used 
other  language  had  he  been  sitting,  as  he  wrote 
those  words  to  the  Romans,  at  the  very  foot  of 
the  Rhodian  Laocoon  drawing  his  inspiration 
and  suggestion  from  it.  He  wrote  of  that  strug- 
gle, which  has  come  to  every  man  and  woman 
that  ever  lived,  not  excepting  even  the  incarnate 
Son  of  God — that  gigantic  and  awful  struggle 
of  the  Godlike  and  aspiring  human  soul  against 
149 


The  Christ  of  Our  Pods 

sin,  whose  effort  and  purpose  are  to  drag  down 
and  befoul  and  utterly  ruin. 

Sin  is  a  veritable  Proteus,  now  coming-  to  the 
attack  in  the  form  of  selfishness  cold  and  hard 
and  grasping,  now  as  some  sudden  strong  pas- 
sion, now  as  a  gross  growing  habit  that  day  by 
day  wraps  serpent-like  fold  on  fold  about  the  soul 
getting  ready  for  the  final  fatal  crush,  and 
now  as  a  flaming  temper  leaping  upon  the  soul 
with  hghtning  quickness  and  transfixing  it 
with  the  stare  of  its  blazing  eyes.  It  sometimes 
comes  up  to  us  in  the  garb  of  beauty,  or  in  the 
form  of  some  lovely  virtue,  ^'deceiving  the  very 
elect"  and  luring  to  ruin  the  purest-minded 
among  us.  Whatever  its  form  or  appearance,  it 
is  the  same  "old  serpent,"  Sin,  accompanied  by 
its  twin  brother,  Suffering,  which  have  battled 
with  the  race  for  at  least  six  thousand  years.  In 
the  dewy  morning  of  the  world  it  glided  into  Eden 
and  ruined  man's  home,  and  so  it  is, 

Some  flow'rets  of  Eden  we  still  inherit, 
But  the  trail  of  the  Serpent  is  over  them  all. 

It  has  followed  the  sons  of  Adam  to  every 
shore  of  earth  and  left  its  slime  on  the  loveliest, 
loftiest  of  men  and  women.  It  loves  a  shining 
mark.  Its  delight  is  to  befoul  the  purest,  mar 
the  most  beautiful,  and  drag  dov/n  the  loftiest. 
It  would,  if  it  could,  climb  to  the  very  throne  of 


''The  Marble  Prophecy''' 

all  worlds  and  wrap  the  Creator  himself  in  the 

tragedy  of  Laocoon, 

Dr.  Holland  says  of  tlie  Rhodian  Laocoon  that 

inspired  his  song,  and  of  the  legend  which  the 

marble  tells : 

Be  sure  it  was  no  fable  that  inspired 

So  grand  an  utterance.     Perchance  some  leaf 

From  the  Hebrew  record  had  conveyed 

The  knowledge  of  the  genesis  of  sin 

And  woe. 

Thousands  of  years  before  the  Rhodian  Lao- 
coon was  carved,  or  Paul  wrote,  or  Holland  sang, 
it  was  told  on  earth  that  God's  Son  in  human 
form  should  some  day  meet  the  serpent  of  Eden's 
ruin  in  mortal  conflict  and  should  bruise  his  head, 
and  be  bruised  him.self.  Old  Egypt  heard  the 
glad  story,  and  we  read  on  her  ruined  temple 
walls,  in  crude  symbolic  picturing,  the  story  of 
Horus  crusliing  the  head  of  the  serpent  of  evil. 
Persia  of  old  heard  the  story  beautiful,  and, 
translating  it  into  her  own  speech,  tells  of  a  war 
between  Mithras,  the  savior,  and  Ahriman,  the 
god  of  sin.  Greece  heard  the  story,  and  retold 
it  in  two  of  her  poetic  legends :  one  was  of  Her- 
cules slaying  the  Hydra  of  Lake  Loerna,  and  the 
other  told  of  Apollo,  the  sun  god,  slaying  the 
dreadful  Python.  Thus  over  the  whole  w^orld 
the  story  went ;  and  men  everywhere  learned  that 
only  a  God  could  overcome  the  serpent  of  sin ;  and 


The  Christ  of  Our  Poets 

yet  so  many  thousands  to-day  have  not  learned 
the  story,  though  they  have  heard  it  so  often. 
V/ill  not  Greeks  and  Romans,  Persians  and  Egyp- 
tians, out  of  the  dead  centuries  of  that  distant  pa- 
gan age,  rise  up  on  that  great  Judgment  Day  and 
condemn  the  un faith  in  Christ  and  the  insane  folly 
of  these  thousands  born  in  the  glorious  evening 
of  the  nineteenth  century  or  early  morning  of  the 
twentieth  ? 

Let  us  stress  "the  old,  old  story"  of  a  Christ  who 
is  able  to  save,  and  as  willing  as  he  is  able.  It  is  an 
old  story  indeed.  It  was  whispered  in  Eden,  and 
it  has  been  many  times  retold,  often  in  distorted 
form  it  is  true.  It  has  been  sung,  often  in  mys- 
terious measures,  by  the  bards  of  all  lands.  It 
has  been  cut  in  stone  by  men  who  built  Babylon 
and  piled  the  Pyramids  and  carved  the  marvelous 
statuary  of  Greece.  But  nowhere  has  it  been 
told  so  simply,  so  strongly,  and  so  sweetly  as  in 
the  New  Testament. 

152 


EPICS 
OF  JESUS 


"I  am  Alpha  and  Omega,  the  be- 
ginning and  the  end.  the  first  and  the 

last"  — Rev.  xxii.  13 


XVP 

An  epic  is  a  song  with  a  hero  for  its  theme. 
We  are  all  hero  worshipers ;  hence  the  epic  is  uni- 
versally popular.  For  nearly  twenty  centuries 
Jesus  has  stood  unparalleled  in  greatness,  receiv- 
ing from  millions  a  worship  transcending  tlie 
loftiest  "hero  worship"  ever  paid  to  Ulysses  or 
^neas.  The  keen-witted,  infidelic  Renan  is  led 
to  say : 

Whatever  may  be  the  surprises  of  the  future,  Jesus 
will  never  be  surpassed.  His  worship  will  grow  young 
without  ceasing;  his  legend  will  call  forth  tears  with- 
out end;  his  sufferings  will  melt  the  noblest  heart;  all 
ages  will  proclaim  that  among  the  sons  of  men  there 
is  none  born  greater  than  Jesus. 

The  great  heart  of  humanity  has  demanded 
for  him  who  is  the  grandest  of  all  heroes  the  sub- 
limest  of  all  epics.  For  centuries  past  the  great 
singers,  recognizing  this  demand,  have  been 
striving  to  tune  their  lyres  to  melodies  sublime 
enough  to  meet  it.  All  have  failed ;  the  ideal  epic 
of  Jesus  remains  to  be  written. 

Of  those  who  have,  each  in  his  own  v/ay,  arid 
from  his  own  one-sided  point  of  view,  attempted 

^This  chapter  appeared  in  the  Quaricrly  Rcviciu  of 
the  M.  E.  Church,  South.  January,  1892. 


The  Christ  of  Our  Poets 

it,  only  Dante  and  Tasso,  Milton  and  Pollok,  Bick- 
ersteth  and  Arnold,  are  worthy  of  mention. 

Had  Tasso's  "Jerusalem  Delivered"  been  writ- 
ten in  the  nineteenth  century,  instead  of  the  six- 
teenth, it  could  no  more  be  mentioned  in  this  con- 
nection than  can  Longfellow's  "Divine  Tragedy" 
or  Pope's  "Messiah" ;  but  as  chivalry  was  the 
only  expression  of  the  world's  Christ-love  left  to 
the  dark  ages,  out  of  which  Tasso  sang,  and  as 
Christian  theology  had  degenerated  Into  a  con- 
fused and  contemptible  mixture  of  Roman  pagan- 
ism, Grecian  philosophy,  and  New  Testament 
doctrines,  it  is  evident  that  Tasso,  the  blind  dev- 
otee of  an  unknown  Christ,  intended  his  song 
to  be  an  epic  of  Christianity  on  its  human  side — 
in  a  sense  an  epic  of  Christ.  It  serves  as  an  il- 
lustrious example  of  the  utter  inability  of  mediae- 
val Christianity  to  produce  anything  worthy  of 
the  name  of  a  Christian  ode,  much  less  a  Chris- 
tian epic.  Aping  Virgil  introducing  his  "^^neid," 
Tasso  begins : 

I  sing  the  pious  arms  and  Chief,  who  freed 
The  Sepulcher  of  Christ  from  thrall  profane. 

His  hero  then  is  not  the  Christ  really,  but  Duke 
Godfrey : 

Godfrey  burns  to  v/rest 
From  hand  profane  the  consecrated  town, 
And,  heaven  affecting,  in  what  slight  request 
i=;6 


Epics  of  Jesus 

He  holds  the  meaner  joys  of  earth — renown, 
Treasure,  and  purple  power,  and  glory's  meteor 
crown. 

Dante,  more  learned  and  with  broader  mental 
sweep  than  Tasso,  out  of  the  same  medieval 
gloom,  three  centuries  earlier,  sang  his  "Divina 
Comedia,"  which  he  by  no  means  meant  to  be  a 
comedy  in  the  modern  sense ;  although  its  absurd- 
ity would  be  comic  if  it  did  not  wear  such  an  air 
of  profound  earnestness.  Dante  wrote  from  tlie 
theological  side  of  Christianity,  as  Tasso  from  the 
human  or  common  life  side ;  or,  to  be  more  exact, 
Dante  dealt  with  Christian  mythology  and  Tasso 
with  Christian  chivalry.  Neither  has  touched  the 
great  heart  of  humanity,  and  neither  has  in  any 
true  sense  written  an  epic  of  Jesus. 

Milton's  twin  songs,  "Paradise  Lost"  and 
"Paradise  Regained,"  constitute  the  first  real 
Christian  epic  ever  written.  Tliat  Milton  did 
not  plan  to  write  an  epic  of  Jesus,  but  rather  of 
humanity,  is  evident  from  the  fact  that  "Para- 
dise Lost"  was  written  before  he  thought  of  writ- 
ing its  companion ;  and  "Paradise  Regained" 
closes  with  the  temptation  scene,  which  Milton 
seems  to  have  considered  the  crowning  act  of  Mes- 
sianic conquest,  the  complete  assurance  of  a  re- 
deemed humianlty ;  although  it  occurs  at  the  very 
opening  of  the  v/onderful  drama,  and  sh.ould  fall 
in  the  first  or  second  canto  of  an  epic  of  Jesus. 
157 


The  Christ  of  Oiw  Poets 

Nor  did  lie  end  liis  work  in  sheer  despair  of  ac- 
complishing the  task  lie  had  planned ;  for  he  was 
so  well  pleased  with  his  work  that  he  insisted  on 
ranking-  it  with  "Paradise  Lost,"  and  was  dis- 
pleased that  many  of  his  readers  preferred  the 
earlier  poem. 

Milton's  twin  songs  are  intensely  theological. 
He  sings 

Of  man's  first  disobedience,  and  the  fruit 
Of  that  forbidden  tree  whose  mortal  taste 
Brought  death  into  our  world  and  all  our  woe. 

He  teaches  man's  m.oral  agency,  declaring  that 

God 

Made  him  just  and  right, 
Sufficient  to  have  stood,  though  free  to  fall. 

He  sings  of  redemption,  of 

Recovered  Paradise  to  all  mankind, 
By  one  man's  firm  obedience  fully  tried 
Through  all  temptation,  and  the  tempter  foiled 
In  all  his  wiles,  defeated  and  repulsed, 
And  Eden  raised  in  the  waste  wilderness. 

He  sings  of  God — 

Immutable,  immortal,  infinite, 
Eternal  King,  Author  of  all  being, 
Fountain  of  Light ! 

And  of  the 

Begotten  Son,  divine  similitude. 

In  whose  conspicuous  countenance,  without  cloud 

Made  visible,  the  Almichty  Father  shines. 


Efics  of  Jcsjis 

He  sings  of 

Angels,  progeny  of  light. 
Thrones,  dominations,  princedoms, 
Virtues,  powers — 

both  fallen  and  imfallen — and  of  heaven,  the 
beautiful ;  and  of  hell,  those 

Regions  of  sorrow,  doleful  shades,  where  peace 
And  rest  can  never  dwell. 

.  Milton,  though  reared  a  Calvinist,  had  risen 
above  the  stern  and  awful  liyper-Calvinism  of  his 
day.     He  makes  God  say  of  the  fallen  angels : 

They  therefore,  as  to  right  belonged, 
So  were  created;  nor  can  justly  accuse 
Their  Maker  or  their  making  or  their  fate. 
As  if  predestination  overruled 
Their  will  disposed  by  absolute  decree 
Or  high  foreknowledge;  they  themselves  decreed 
Their  own  revolt — not  I;  if  I  foreknew. 
Foreknowledge  had  no  influence  on  their  fault, 
Which  had  no  less  proved  certain  unforeknown. 

Nevertheless  his  conception  of  God  is  intense- 
ly Calvinistic.  Divine  sovereignty  was,  in  his 
view,  so  autocratic,  or  rather  despotic,  that 

He 
Who  now  is  Sovereign  can  dispose  and  bid 
Wliat  shall  be  right. 

Although  these  words  occur  in  a  speech  made 
by  Satan,  yet  they  express  the  current  belief  of 
Milton's  day ;  and  if  he  had  not  believed  it,  he 
would  certainly  have  expressed  his  dissent. 
159 


The  Christ  of  Ou7-  Poets 

The  one  preeminent  feature  of  Milton's  songs 
is  grandeur;  but  it  is  cold  and  stately,  generally 
dreadful — never  softened.  His  very  efforts  at  the 
beautiful  are  cold,  rigidly  elegant — never  warm, 
tender.    He  speaks  of  "amarant,"  not  amaranth. 

The  spirits  elect 
Bind  their  resplendent  locks  inwreathed  with  beams: 

The  bright 
Pavement,  that  like  a  sea  of  jasper  shone, 
Impurpled  with  celestial  roses  smiled. 

Shining  pavement  of  jasper  and  purple  roses — 
what  regal,  elegant,  stately  beauty!  yet  without 
a  touch  of  tenderness  or  a  hint  of  sweetness ;  a 
smile,  but  cold  and  glistening. 

This  utter  want  of  tenderness,  the  result  of  the 
cold,  stern  theology  of  his  day — that  which  made 
him  a  Puritan  much  more  than  a  Christian ;  that 
which  taught  him  to  hate  sin  with  a  hatred  itself 
akin  to  sin,  but  could  not  teach  him  to  love  the 
sinner;  that  which  glorified  the  justice  of  God 
and  forgot  his  mercy;  that  which  painted  in  re- 
gal magnificence  the  Divine  King,  and  could  not 
say  "Our  Father,  who  art  in  heaven" — that  was 
the  one  fatal  defect  in  this  poet,  who  would  sing 
of  Jesus.  If  he  had  tried  to  write  an  epic  of  Je- 
sus instead  of  an  epic  of  redeemed  humanity,  he 
w^ould  have  failed  most  signally.  Possibly  he 
knew  this.     His  picture  of  Christ  ^  makes  him  a 

*See  "Paradise  Lost,"  Book  III. 
1 60 


Epics  of  Jcsiis 

veritable  Mars,  as  utterly  unlike  the  Christ  of  the 
Gospels  as  the  Grecian  war  god  is  unlike  the 
wrestler  in  Gethsemane,  or  the  guest  of  the  Beth- 
any home : 

Thou  that  day 
Thy  Father's  dreadful  thunder  didst  not  spare, 
Nor  stop  thy  flaming  chariot  wheels,  that  shook 
Heaven's  everlasting  frame,  while  o'er  the  necks 
Thou  drovest  of  warring  angels  disarrayed. 
Back  from  pursuit  thy  powers,  with  loud  acclaim, 
Thee  only  extolled.  Son  of  thy  Father's  might 
To  execute  fierce  vengeance  on  his  foes. 

The  common  people  of  Milton's  day  were  not 
a  reading  people ;  hence  he  made  no  effort  to  write 
for  any  but  the  learned.  Therefore  we  find  his 
songs  obscure  with  learned  allusions,  and  bur- 
dened with  similes  and  metaphors  mythologic 
and  scientific.  This  gives  his  verse  an  air  of 
Dedantry  which  renders  harsh  and  stiff  what 
might  otherwise  be  somewhat  tender.  It  must 
be  remembered,  also,  that  he  wrote  at  a  time 
when  the  English  language  was  far  less  volumi- 
nous and  flexible  than  now ;  and  no  writer  could 
shade  his  word-pictures  and  give  to  his  thoughts 
a  dress  in  such  harmony  with  the  nature  of  the 
thought  as  the  poet  of  to-day  may  do.  All  of, 
these  things  conspire  to  rob  Milton's  twin  songs 
of  the  tender  sweetness  and  melting  melody  in- 
dispensable to  the  ideal  epic  of  Jesus. 

Of  Pollok's  "Course  of  Time"  but  little  need 
II  i6i 


The  Christ  of  Our  Poets 

be  said.  Like  the  songs  of  Milton,  it  is  rather  an 
epic  of  humanity  than  aught  else.  It  deals  with 
Christ  and  Christianity  only  as  these  are  insep- 
arably intertwined  with  human  origin,  life,  and 
destiny.  With  less  of  grandeur  and  more  adapt- 
ability to  the  common  people  than  Milton's  songs, 
it  deals  largely  with  the  same  or  cognate  matters. 
It  is  better  arranged,  but  not  so  well  expressed, 
often  descending  to  the  puerile.  It  talks  some- 
what of  our  Christ,  but  fails  to  be  a  real  epic  of 
Jesus. 

In  September,  1866,  there  appeared  in  England 
— and  five  years  later  in  America — an  extended 
epic  from  the  pen  of  Rev.  Edward  Henry  Bick- 
ersteth,  entitled  "Yesterday,  To-day,  and  For- 
ever." It  sings  of  heaven  and  hell,  time  and 
eternity,  of  sin  and  redemption,  of  Christ  and  his 
Church,  of  the  millennium  and  the  judgment. 
It  is  an  epic  of  Time,  an  epic  of  God,  an  epic  of 
Man,  but  more  than  all  an  epic  of  Jesus.  It  has 
little  of  Milton's  grandeur,  but  has  a  wealth  of 
tender  sweetness  and  delicate  beauty  of  which 
Milton  never  dreamed.  His  very  efforts  at 
grandeur  are  so  softened  that  strength  is  sacri- 
ficed to  tenderness — it  Is  but  beauty  slightly  sub- 
limated.    Witness  the  following: 

My  soul 
Was  lit  up  with  a  clearer,  purer  light, 
The  daybreak  of  a  near  eternity, 
162 


Epics  of  Jcsiis 

Which  cast  its  penetrating  beams  across 
The  isthmus  of  my  life,  and  fringed  with  gold 
The  mists  of  childhood,  and  revealed  beyond 
The  outline  of  the  everlasting  hills. 

Was  there  ever  painted  a  sweeter  picture  of 
something  great  than  this  ? 

Once,  when  night  was  listening  for  the  dawn, 
Aloof  upon  the  brow  of  Olivet 
I  gazed  on  sleeping  Salem.     In  the  east 
Flashed  a  faint  streak  of  pearl:  the  distant  hills 
Slumbered  in  the  shadov/  and  the  vales  in  mist. 

His  very  conception  of  a  conquering  Christ  is 
softened  with  an  ever-abiding  thought  of  a  suf- 
fering Christ : 

On  Olivet 
The  weary  Saviour  rested  and  forecast 
The  anguish  coming  on  Jerusalem, 
The  birth-pangs  of  evangel  life,  nor  left 
That  mountain's  brow,  nor  limited  the  range 
Of  his  prophetic  vision,  till  he  spake 
Of  his  great  advent  in  the  clouds  of  heaven. 

Milton,  with  his  Calvinistic  Puritanism,  could 
never  have  written  anything  like  this : 

It  was  not  only  grace  we  saw,  but  grace 
That  failed  not  in  a  world  of  selfishness; 
Nor  only  light,  but  light  in  poisonous  air 
Miraculously  burning,  self-sustained; 
Nor  faith  alone,  but  faith  emptying  itself. 
Itself  to  strengthen  in  another's  might; 
Self-limited  omnipotence,  that  deigned. 
Weak  even  as  man  is  weak,  to  lean  on  God. 
163 


TJic  Christ  of  Our  Poets 


Emmanuel  tabernacled  among  men 
To  solace  and  sustain  his  orphan  Church, 
To  heal  the  bleeding  heart  of  penitence, 
To  cheer  the  downcast  wayfarers  to  stand 
Suddenly  as  a  spirit,  but  every  man 
Among  his  brethren,  and  imbreathe  on  them 
The  benediction  of  his  peace  and  power. 
To  transform  human  fear  to  heavenly  faith, 
To  conquer  doubt  by  love;  a  second  time 
To  teach  his  chosen  fishermen  to  cast 
The  dragnet  of  the  kingdom,  to  reveal 
Himself  unto  his  own  in  Galilee. 

Here  again  we  have  strength  sacrificed  to 
sweetness;  and  Milton  would  have  undoubtedly 
sacrificed  sweetness  to  strength :  the  writer  of  the 
ideal  epic  of  Jesus  must  do  neither.  Tennyson 
in  his  "In  Memoriam"  does  neither;  and  had  he 
written  an  epic  of  Jesus  as  exhaustivel}'^  and  care- 
fully as  he  wrote  "In  Memoriam,"  I  believe  the 
world  would  have  recognized  in  it  the  longed-for 
ideal,  unless  it  had  failed  to  reach  the  height  of 
grandeur  required,  which  is  quite  possible ;  for 
strength  is  not  always  grandeur,  and  Tennyson 
is  not  a  theologian. 

Just  ten  years  ago  there  appeared  in  England 
— and  a  little  later  in  America — an  epic  of  Jesus, 
entitled  "The  Light  of  the  World,"  written  by 
Sir  Edwin  Arnold,  who  had  won  his  fame  a  doz- 
en years  earlier  by  his  epic  of  Buddha,  entitled 
"The  Light  of  Asia."  Here  we  have  what  at- 
164 


Epics  of  Jesus 

tempts  to  be  simply  and  only  an  epic  of  Jesus — 
nothing  more,  nothing  less.  Milton  aimed  at 
something  more,  Pollok  at  something  a  little  else, 
Bickersteth  at  that  and  something  more ;  but  Ar- 
nold only  at  that.  He  has  succeeded  in  so  far 
that  he  has  written  a  veritable  epic  of  Jesus,  but 
his  work  lacks  much  of  the  ideal  epic  of  Jesus. 

The  one  peculiar  feature  of  Sir  Edwin's  work, 
and  its  greatest  charm,  is  naturalness — the  sweet 
simplicity  of  naturalness.  Witness  the  follow- 
ing: 

So  many  hallsides  crowned  with  rugged  rocks! 

So  many  simple  shepherds  keeping  flocks, 

In  many  moonlit  fields!  but  only  they — 

So  lone,  so  long  ago,  so  far  away — 

On  that  one  winter's  night  at  Bethlehem, 

To  have  white  angels  singing  lauds  for  them! 

Here  we  have  but  one  word,  "lauds,"  that  any 
child  might  not  comprehend — all  so  simple,  so 
natural,  and  yet  beautiful.  His  verse  has  the 
charm  of  rhyme  and  rhythm,  alliteration  and  mel- 
ody.    What  can  be  sweeter  than  this  ? 

Meek  and  sweet  in  the  sun  he  stands, 

Drinking  the  cool  of  his  Syrian  skies, 
Lifting  to  heaven  toil-wearied  hands, 

Seeing  his  Father  with  those  pure  eyes. 
Gazing  from  trestle  and  bench  and  saw 

To  the  kingdom  kept  for  his  rule  above; 
O  Jesus,  Lord,  we  see  with  awe! 

O  Mary's  Son,  we  look  with  love! 

165 


The  Christ  of  Our  Poets 

His  theology,  though  not  so  profound,  so  grand 
in  its  sweep,  so  philosophic  as  Milton's,  and  in 
some  respects  very  faulty,  is  yet,  in  its  concep- 
tion of  God,  vastly  truer,  lacking  every  tinge  of 
the  Calvinistic  harshness  of  the  seventeenth  cen- 
tury theology : 

God's  love  runneth  faster  than  our  feet, 
To  meet  us  stealing  back  to  him  and  peace, 
And  kisses  dumb  our  shame — nay,  and  puts  on 
The  best  robe,  bidding  angels  bring  it  forth, 
While  heaven  makes  festival. 

The  Christ  he  paints  is  all  tenderness,  divine 
tenderness ;  strong,  yet  tenderer  than  strong : 

This  Godlike  One — 
This  spotless,  stainless,  sinless,  blameless  Christ^ 
Whom  none  did  once  convince  of  one  small 

swerve 
From  perfectness;  nor  ever  shall!     So  strong 
The  elements  obey  him;  so  divine 
The  devils  worshiped;  so  with  virtue  charged 
The  touch  of  him  was  health;  so  masterful 
The  dead  came  back  upon  his  call;  so  mild 
The  little  children  clustered  at  his  knee, 
And  nestled  trustful  locks  on  that  kind  breast 
Which  leans  to-day  on  God's. 

The  following  is  his  description  of  Jesus'  per- 
sonal appearance : 

One 
Of  a  commanding  stature — beautiful — 
Bearing  such  countenance  as  whoso  gazed 
Must  love  or  fear.     Wine-color  shone  his  hair. 


Epics  of  Jesus 

Glittering  and  waved,  an  aureole  folded  down, 

Its  long  rays  lighted  locks  which  fell  and  flowed 

Fair  parted  from  the  midle  of  his  head, 

After  the  manner  of  the  Nazaritcs. 

Of  dignity  surpassing,  pure  and  pale 

As  lightning  leaping  sudden  from  the  sky, 

As  the  Greek's  marble,  but  flushed  frequently 

With  the   bright  blood   of   manhood.     Nose   and 

mouth 
Faultless  for  grace,  and  full  and  soft  the  beard, 
Forked,  the  hazel  color  of  his  hair; 
The  great  eyes  blue  and  radiant,  mild  as  sky; 
Even  and  clear  his  forehead;  and  the  face 
Of  springtime  after  rain,  yet  terrible 
When  he  rebuked.     In  admonition  calm; 
In  tender  hours  each  word  like  music's  soul 
Plcard  past  the  sound!  Not  ofttimes  seen  to  smile, 
More  oft  to  weep;  yet  of  a  lofty  cheer 
Commonly — yea,  of  playful  raillery 
And  swift  wit,  softened  with  sweet  gravity. 
Straight  standing  like  a  palm  tree;  hands  and  limits 
So  molded  that  the  noblest  copy  of  them 
Among  the  sons  of  men  fairest  and  first. 

The  naturalness  of  Sir  Edwin's  song  is  great- 
ly enhanced  by  a  positive  orientalism  very  marked 
throughout  the  whole  poem.     He  talks  of 

The  high-capped  Median  bringing  stallions  in. 
The  Indian  traders  with  the  spice  and  silk. 
The  negro  men  from  Cush  and  Elamites, 
The  Red  Sea  sailors;  and  from  the  shores  of  Nile 
The  blue-gowned,  swart  Egyptian — 

frequent   feet 

Of  Tyrian  traders  and  dark  desert  men 
167 


The  Christ  of  Our  Poets 

Rocking  upon  their  camels,  with  wild  eyes 
Glittering  like  lance  points;  and  Sidonians, 
Syrians  and  Greeks  and  Jews — a  motley  crowd. 

He  sings,  now  and  then,  his  vague,  wild  In- 
dian philosophy : 

Om  A  mil  ay  a!  O 
The  Immeasurable !     What  word  but  doeth  wrong, 
Clothing  the  Eternal  in  the  forms  of  now? 

Notwithstanding  all  of  this  naturalness  and 
beauty,  all  of  this  tenderness,  this  truest  concep- 
tion of  God,  and  this  presentation  of  the  human 
Jesus  superior  to  any  ever  before  drawn  by  poet, 
yet  his  work  lacks  much  of  the  ideal  epic  of  Je- 
sus. Its  defects  are  grave  and  numerous.  The 
plot  is  very  defective,  many  important  events  be- 
ing entirely  overlooked,  and  unimportant  and 
often  imaginary  scenes  largely  elaborated.  His- 
tory and  biography  are  very  rudely  handled. 
For  instance,  he  makes  Mary  of  Magdala  identi- 
cal with  Mary  of  Bethany,  and  both  with  the 
fallen  one  who  came  to  Jesus  in  the  house  of  .Si- 
mon of  Galilee.  His  orientalism,  which  is  so 
charming,  would  be  more  so  Avere  it  not  Indian 
orientalism  instead  of  Syrian,  which  the  setting 
of  the  Christ  history  demands.  The  most  glar- 
ing defect,  however,  is  his  manifest  and  disap- 
pointing want  of  grandeur.  The  Jesus  he  draws 
in  "The  Light  of  the  World"  is  only  about  as 
much  greater  than  the  Gautama  of  his  "Light  of 
168 


Epics  of  Jesus 

Asia"  as  the  earth  is  larger  than  Asia.  Now  our 
Christ  is  just  as  tender,  and  just  as  human,  and 
just  as  loving  and  lovable,  sweet  and  beautiful  as 
Sir  Edwin  paints  him,  but  he  is  also  as  grand  as 
God,  as  much  greater  than  Buddha  as  the  uni- 
verse is  greater  than  Asia.  Calvary  and  Geth- 
semane,  Hermon  and  Olivet  were  not  pretty  gar- 
den scenes,  lapped  with  lullaby  breezes  and  odor- 
ous with  roses ;  but  they  were  tremendous  in  their 
sweep,  reaching  to  the  stars,  touching  the  throne 
of  Omnipotence,  enlisting  the  universe,  and  echo- 
ing into  the  ages  of  eternity.  Sir  Edwin  seems 
to  have  no  sort  of  a  conception  of  this,  but  deals 
with  all  of  them  as  if  they  were  merely  exquisite 
passages  in  the  history  of  a  man  whose  life  and 
character  were  a  little  too  angelic  and  wonderful 
to  be  classed  as  human.  I  do  not  suppose  that 
Sir  Edwin  doubts  the  divinity  of  Jesus,  but  he  has 
never  learned  what  that  divinity  means.  An  epic 
of  Jesus  with  the  element  of  redemption  left  out 
as  as  defective  as  would  be  the  play  of  Hamlet 
with  Hamlet's  part  eliminated.  Sir  Edwin  has 
given  us  a  picture  of  a  gentle,  loving,  teaching, 
healing,  suffering,  dying,  and  rising  Jesus;  but 
utterly  ignores  the  fact  that  he  is  also  a  world-re- 
deeming Jesus.  Milton  made  so  much  of  the  di- 
vine Christ  that  he  lost  sight  of  the  human ;  Sir 
Edwin,  on  the  other  hand,  makes  so  much  of  the 
human  that  he  loses  sight  of  the  divine. 
1 6^ 


The  Christ  of  Our  Poets 

The  English  language  has  now  attained  a  rich- 
ness and  fullness  which  enables  it  to  express  all 
the  delicate  shades  of  thought  and  feeling,  and 
with  all  degrees  of  intensity.  Such  was  never 
attained  by  any  tongue  of  antiquity,  and  is  un- 
known to  any  other  dialect  of  to-day.  With  more 
simplicity  than  the  old  Hebrew,  more  strength 
than  the  Latin  of  Caesar  and  Cicero,  more  melody 
than  classic  Greek,  and  more  volume  than  all  put 
together,  it  has  never  been  equaled  and  will  never 
be  surpassed.  The  language,  then,  is  ready  to 
word  the  ideal  epic  of  Jesus,  Nineteenth  century 
research  has  turned  a  strong  light  on  the  history 
and  chronology,  philology  and  bibliography  of 
the  New  Testament;  and  on  the  topography  and 
geography,  ethnology  and  folklore  of  the  land  of 
Jesus;  and  the  world  to-day  knows  more  about 
the  wonderful  "Son  of  Man"  than  ever  before, 
and  possibly  nearly  as  much  as  will  be  known  un- 
til the  light  of  eternity  falls  on  the  events  of  time. 
Now,  if  some  poet  would  arise,  with  the  grand- 
eur of  Milton,  the  elegance  of  Tennyson,  the  ten- 
derness of  Bickersteth,  the  naturalness  of  Sir  Ed- 
win Arnold,  and  the  learning  of  a  Geikie,  he 
might  write  an  epic  of  Jesus  which  would  de- 
light earth's  millions  a  thousand  years  to  come. 

Almost  every  great  epic  in  the  English  lan- 
guage bears  on  its  face  a  painful  confession  of 
weakness  in  its  author.  Milton  did  not  dare  to 
170 


Epics  of  Jesus 

attempt  rhyme,  and  knew  nothing  of  aUiteration  ; 
Bickcrsteth  attempts  alliteration  now  and  then, 
but  shuns  the  rhyme,  although  in  his  lyrics  and 
lesser  epics  he  uses  it  with  marked  success;  Ar- 
nold uses  rhyme  to  some  extent,  and  alliteration 
more  freely ;  but  all  seemed  to  fear  that  it  might 
so  trammel  them  that  their  verse  would  be  con- 
strained and  weak.  For  the  very  same  reason 
hundreds  of  others  write  only  in  prose.  A  first- 
class  poet  is  one  who  is  able  to  write  easy, 
smooth,  elegant,  and  strong  verse,  adorned  with 
rhyme  as  Avell  as  rhythm,  alliteration  as  well  as 
figures,  and  yet  resort  to  as  few  inversions  as  ele- 
gance or  force  requires,  and  shun  as  sin  every- 
thing known  as  poetic  license.  The  less  inver- 
sion the  more  naturalness,  and  the  less  license 
the  more  elegance,  should  be  his  motto.  The 
ideal  epic  of  Jesus  must  come  to  us  grand  in 
thought,  rich  in  figure,  tender  in  spirit,  true  as 
the  Gospels  in  its  narrative,  and  clothed  in  the 
choicest  English,  with  rhyme  and  rhythm  and  al- 
literation and  every  other  charm  known  to  poetry. 
Who  will  write  it,  and  when  ?  It  will  be  writ- 
ten, though  we  who  live  to-day  may  never  read  it. 
171 


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